Algorithms is currently screening at the Sydney Film Festival. You can grab your tickets here. Quite by accident, this is the second film I have watched about chess in the 2013 Film Festival. The first I saw, called Computer Chess, is a fictional film set up to look like a documentary on the 1980’s and […]
Tag Archives: Sydney Film Festival
June
02
Algorithms – Ian McDonald reminds us, four moves in we are all blind. (Sydney Film Festival review)
posted by lisathatcher
May
25
The Perverts Guide To Ideology – Slavoj Žižek says we are responsible for our dreams. (Sydney FF Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
This is a review of The Perverts Guide to Ideology which is showing at the Sydney Film Festival. Grab your tickets here. I already am eating from the trash can all of the time. The name of this trash can is ideology. The material force of ideology makes me not see what I am effectively […]
May
24
Only God Forgives – Nicolas Winding Refn and the Oedipus reach. (Sydney Film Festival Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Only God Forgives is showing at the Sydney Film Festival in Competition. Grab tickets here. His destiny moves us only because it might have been ours — because the Oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first […]
May
20
Mistaken for Strangers – The National, The Berningers and rock stars. (Sydney FF Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Music films are a highlight of the Sydney Film Festival this year and among them is the heartwarming, fascinating Mistaken for Strangers. Officially, Mistaken For Strangers is a rock documentary about The National and the biggest world tour they had yet encountered. The National are a fascinating band because – as the title of the […]
May
13
My top twenty-one film choices for the Sydney Film Festival. (SFF review)
posted by lisathatcher
It’s almost Sydney Film Festival time again and already the films are selling out. Check out the festival program here, if you are lucky enough to be in this lovely town this time of year. I am hoping to get along to as much as I can attend. It’s always a huge fortnight, and given […]
Killing them Softly – Andrew Dominik reveals America is a business.
posted by lisathatcher
When I saw Killing Them Softly on the line up at the Sydney Film Festival I confess I did a wide berth. I was like “oh god – ANOTHER one?” about this film. I know there is nothing fresh in cinema (supposedly) and I know Lars von Triers Melancholia is about the death and drudgery […]
SFF: Faust – Sokurov reads between the lines.
posted by lisathatcher
Easily my most challenging moment of the Sydney Film Festival was Alexander Sokurov’s Faust – a film I billed as the best of the festival until I saw Holy Motors, which for me just nudged Faust to the side. In some ways the two films are very similar, taking a dystopian, ultra contemporary view of […]
SFF: Holy Motors – Leos Carax and the question of Free Will
posted by lisathatcher
Up until last night, Faust was the best film I had seen at the Sydney film Festival – a film I have yet to review on the blog here. That’s all changed after seeing Holy Motors. This is easily the best film of the festival. To award it the Palm d’ Or would have been […]
SFF: Amour – Michael Haneke and the question of the end.
posted by lisathatcher
I saw Amour last night at the Sydney Film Festival and I am still wrapped up in its world. What a delicate, beautifully made film – one completely deserving its accolades and applause. There is little to say that hasn’t already been said about this film – and it isn’t due for release till after […]
SFF: Whore’s Glory – Sex, money and death with Michael Glawogger.
posted by lisathatcher
“Prostitution is not to be condemned or defended,” Mr. Glawogger writes. “Prostitution simply is. It is like war. War is.” I’ve been out of this film an hour and because I will see so many films over the next week and a half, it is my intention to write about the films after I have seen them. […]
Lisa Thatcher 