Current Issue #488

Adelaide Film Festival Announces Full 2017 Program

Adelaide Film Festival Announces Full 2017 Program

Adelaide Film Festival has announced its full program of 142 films, including 23 world premieres and 40 Australian premieres such as Ai Weiwei’s documentary Human Flow and the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties.

Under the banner of Vive Le Punk the Adelaide Film Festival will take place over 11 days this year, based at GU Filmhouse, with further events radiating out to Mercury Cinema, Palace East End, Port Adelaide and the Tonsley Innovation Precinct.

Following from the festival’s early August program announcement, which included the Martin Freeman-starring Cargo, Sweet Country from Warwick Thornton and Closer Productions’ F*cking Adelaide, the full program is comprised of a broad swathe of documentaries, Australian-made features and films from all around the world.

Standout Australian premiere highlights include Sophie Fiennes’ documentary Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, Ai Weiwei’s study of displaced people Human Flow, the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel How to Talk to Girls at Parties and Simon Curtis’ Goodbye Christopher Robin, starring Margot Robbie and Nicole Kidman.

World cinema also makes a strong showing in the 2017 program, with ten feature films in contention for the International Best Feature Award, including Cannes Palme d’Or winner The Square from Denmark’s Ruben Östlund and Luca Gudagnino’s French-Italian co-production Call Me By Your Name. A further 12 features from around the globe sit in a World Cinema program that includes Happy End from Michael Hanneke, Sally Potter’s The Party and João Pedro Rodrigues’ The Ornithologist, which won Rodrigues Best Director at the Locarno International Film Festival.

A wide range of documentaries will make their world premiere at the festival this year, including the Gaza-invasion story From Under the Rubble, the intensely personal tale of My Mother’s Children from Danny Ben-Moshe, Larissa Behrendt’s ode to Indigenous grandmothers fighting the system After the Apology and Guilty, a portrait of the last 72 hours of Bali Nine smuggler Myuran Sukumaran’s life.

Virtual reality continues to grow its niche in the festival, with the brand-new AFTRS International Virtual Reality Award dedicated to the emerging format, a VR Lounge dedicated to screening nominated works, and a premiere virtual work from Closer Productions’ Matthew Bate. On the festival’s October 5 opening night, Bate will immerse audience members in the vivid world of Trent Parke and Narelle Autio’s The Summation Of Force at the Tonsley Innovation Precinct in The Summation of Force VR.

Full program available at adelaidefilmfestival.org

Adelaide Film Festival 2017: Vive Le Punk
5-15 October
Various locations
adelaidefilmfestival.org

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