month : 08/2017 40 results

World Premiere of Broken Ghost at BIFF!

On the face of it, they’re just another family moving to the wide open spaces of the Big Sky Country for a tree change. But for teenage Imogen Day (Autry Hayden-Wilson) and her parents Samantha (Scottie Thompson) and Will (Nick Farnell), the move to Montana is an escape from quite a unique kind of bullying. Desperate to make a new life for herself, Imogen must overcome new tormentors, old secrets, and a strange presence in the attic in this coming-of-age tale, wrapped in a ghost story. ...

BIFF Movie Review – Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary

The broad strokes are covered and some of John’s lesser angelic qualities are glossed over a bit. His drug and alcohol addictions are touched on but are reduced in the narrative. There is however a touching memory about him quitting cold turkey related by his step daughter Antonia Andrews.   //   The music in the soundtrack is well mixed, if a little repetitive as it seems the filmmakers only licensed a minimum number of track. It is great to hear JC’s music in a ...

Special Screening of Life is a Very Strange Thing at BIFF!

Shot over two years mainly in France but also in Cambodia and Australia, life is a very strange thing is full of warmth and tenderness that involves the audience in the shared joy, worry and uncertainty facing Frédéric, his family and his friends in modern France. We observe the activities and eccentricities of the intelligent storyteller and avid collector Frédéric, who has lived his life deeply and with conviction, as he shows us the Paris and Bordeaux that he loves.   // ...

Gifted Movie Review

Chris Evans hides his matinee idol good looks behind a scruffy beard and it’s a wise move as his compassion and intellect are what comes under close scrutiny. Few roles are written with this much humanity without dipping into unbelievable contrivances. Octavia Spencer is also very good, although it’s a bit of a shame her role is one of a cameo nature and is underwritten.   //   Lindsay Duncan is excellent in a mother role that tries its best to strike a realistic ...

Award Winning Ali’s Wedding Screening at BIFF!

Charismatic Aussie actor Osamah Sami stars in an AWGIE Award-winning adaptation of his stranger-than-fiction true life story. Ali (Sami) is an Iraqi in Melbourne, the second son of a top Muslim cleric (Don Hany) who fled war-torn Iraq by way of Iran to come to Australia. As the son of the leader of a mosque, Ali has big expectations on his shoulders – none of which he feels like living up to. He doesn’t have the grades to get into medical school, but he lies about it to his whole ...

The Way Station Australian Premiere at BIFF!

“The Way Station: Haunting, Seductive, Violent, and Intense!” – Saostar Sumptuously lensed by multi-awarded veteran director of photography Ly Thai Dzung, The Way Station is director Hong Anh’s 10-year passion project and debut feature. Hong Anh is highly influenced by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai and is one of Vietnam’s most popular faces and leading actresses with a 20-year career that includes winning the Golden Lotus Award for Best Leading Actress three years consecuti...

American Made Movie Review

Tom Cruise in one of his strongest roles in years plays Barry Seal, a pilot, government operative, drug runner and so much more. As the number of government agencies he works with add up, so does the level of insanity. The actual sequence of events in Seal’s real life differ quite a bit from the movie’s timeline but why let the truth get in the way of a good story and what a story it is.   //   As a period piece, the clothes, hair and music reinforce a time that ...

Namatjira Project Special Event at BIFF!

“The Namatjira Project … might just be as significant a bridge between blackfella and whitefella as the now fading memory of the march across the coathanger, or even the apology.” – Crikey From the trackless Australian desert to the gates of Buckingham Palace, the Namatjira family have struggled for decades to see justice done. Albert Namatjira was a man caught between two worlds. He was paraded as a great Australian, but treated with contempt. He was the first Indigenous ...

In This Corner of the World Queensland Debut at BIFF!

Based on the manga by Fumiyo Kouno, this heartwarming, sweet and uplifting coming-of-age tale by Sunao Katabuchi (Mai Mai Miracle) took out the Animation of the Year award at this year’s Japan Academy Prize. It’s 1944, and as the Second World War marches ponderously towards its inevitable end far overseas, 18-year-old Suzu moves to the port town of Kure, near the city of Hiroshima, to marry a man she has never met. Suzu is wed to a young clerk from the local naval base and moves in ...

Party with iconic members of Brisbane music royalty – The Go Betweens!

Guests Kriv Stenders, John Willstead, Lindy Morrison OAM, Damian Nelson. Includes food, drinks and DJ following the film! Brisbane musical royalty, The Go-Betweens’ music still reverberates around the streets of this town, more than a decade after the untimely death of one of the band’s co-founders. Part memoir and part concert film, this inspiring documentary by Kriv Stenders (Red Dog) charts the rockers’ path to greatness and examines the passionate, creative and sometimes ...