Movies in the open

Film lovers, rejoice! Combining my two favourite activities – being outdoors and enjoying good cinema – I am stoked that Moonlight Cinema (in Centennial Park) and Open Air Cinema (in the beautiful Royal Botanic Gardens), have announced their summer screening programs last week. Let me tell you, which ever you prefer, you won’t be disappointed. It’s a chance to watch all the missed new releases and enjoy your favourite classics.

Moonlight has already kicked off last week and has its last screening scheduled for Sunday 20 March, while Open Air starts on Wednesday 12 January and ends on Saturday 19 February. Screenings generally start about 8pm, but check the websites for more details like screening times, exact locations and ticket prices. Tickets are still available for many sessions for both outdoor cinemas, however if you’ve got your heart set on a movie, I’d suggest you be quick.

The American

Moonlight Cinema
Based on the novel by pulp fiction writer Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me, is a confronting psychotic thriller that won’t please the faint-hearted. Released earlier this year, the film is directed by Michael Winterbottom (Genova, A Mighty Heart, 9 Songs, 24 Hour Party People) and stars Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba. The Killer Inside Me screens this Sunday 19 December.

For anyone who missed Christopher Nolan’s complex and mostly confusing sci-fi thriller Inception, you have a choice of two nights to see it on: Thursday 30 December and Wednesday 16 February. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Ken Watanabe, earlier this week Inception was nominated for four awards at the 68th Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture (Drama), Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score.

In the new year, Moonlight will be screening many new releases like: Oliver Stone’s 1987 Wall Street sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Tuesday 4 January); the highly engaging story about the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, The Social Network (Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 January); Anton Corbijn’s impressive drama set in Italy and starring George Clooney The American (Saturday 29 January); Gainsbourg (Tuesday 8 February), the odyssey of the father of French pop; Sofia Coppola’s gorgeous new film Somewhere (Friday 4 March); Blue Valentine (Tuesday 8 March) starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams; Black Swan (Wednesday 16 March) with Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel; and so on and on. A full list of features can be found here.

Highly acclaimed documentary Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie will be showing on Monday 28 February and the musical Burlesque with Cher and Christina Aguilera is scheduled for Tuesday 15 March. Classics like Pulp Fiction (Tuesday 1 March), The Godfather (Thursday 3 March) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Tuesday 22 February) to name a few, will also screen.

Desert Flower

Open Air Cinema
Open Air has decided to open the season in style with a premier of the very anticipated Burlesque musical (Wednesday 12 January). Also premiering will be the autobiographical Desert Flower (Sunday 16 January). This inspirational film is a true life story of the Somalian born Waris Dirie who fled to London aged 13, in order to escape an arranged marriage, becoming a supermodel and later a human rights activist – a UN spokeswoman against female circumcision, which she underwent in her native country at the age of three.

In February, Open Air will premier two outstanding features. A US drama Conviction (Tuesday 1 February) based on a true story of a working mother and her incredible commitment to save her brother from being wrongfully convicted of murder, and a beautiful French documentary about the life under water, Oceans (Sunday 6 February).

Other new releases worth highlighting are The Tourist (Tuesday 8 and 15 February), a spy thriller/drama set in Paris and Venice and starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp; the amazing 127 Hours (Monday 7 February) based on a true story of an adventurer’s efforts to survive; The King’s Speech (Wednesday 16 February) starring the exceptional Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. Multi-award winning Australian drama Animal Kingdom will be showing on Australia Day, Tuesday 25 January, thus expect fireworks as a backdrop.

Pre-sale tickets to Open Air Cinema went on sale this morning, Thursday 16 December, and almost all have sold out. Check here for more ticket releases.

Sydney Festival 2011

Beach House © Sydney Festival

My absolutely favourite time of the year is nearing and I thought it’d be nice to share with you my best-loved events for everyone staying in Sydney over summer.

Just like every January, Sydney Festival will light up our city with over 80 events across venues like the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Theatre, CarriageWorks and temporary venues like Beck’s Festival Bar and The Famous Spiegeltent. We will have the opportunity to see a very diverse and attractive mix of Australian and international artists covering dance, theatre, music, visual arts and more over three weeks of the festival.

Firstly, let me tell you how stoked I am about the Baltimore-based dream-pop duo Beach House hitting our shores this summer. With its atmospheric and dreamy marvel, the band’s third and highly acclaimed album Teen Dream has received outstanding reviews and won them a ‘band to watch in 2010’ tag from big industry guns. They are here for the sold-out St Jerome’s Laneway Festival in February and will do a few side gigs at the Sydney Festival. They play Beck’s Festival Bar with Parades on Wednesday 26 January and City Recital Hall Angel Place on Thursday 27 January.

Wire is a 70s English post-punk band whose live performances are said to be “full of urgency and vitality”. The band has been around for over 30 years and has over 10 studio albums, and has influenced the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and REM. Wire will play with the Los Angeles four-piece HEALTH at the Beck’s Festival Bar on Thursday 20 January.

Catching Brooklyn-based Sufjan Stevens and Holly Miranda this time around would also be good. It’s their second visit to Sydney and both will be playing material from their new albums, The Age of Adz and The Magician’s Private Library, respectively. Set in the beautiful Sydney Opera House and backed by a large orchestra and video projections, Sufjan’s performance should be a treat for the senses. Dates to look out for are Thursday 27 and Friday 28 January. Holly Miranda will play at The Famous Spiegeltent on Saturday 15, Sunday 16 and Tuesday 18 January.

I am also very excited about seeing two of my favourite Australian acts, Paul Kelly and Gotye. Both will be on stage at the City Recital Hall Angel Place, Gotye with one show on Thursday 27 January, and Paul Kelly with a few from Thursday 20 to Sunday 23 January.

Live: An intimate video study of the art of performing is precisely that … a large-scale video installation showing a collection of performances of over 20 of the world’s best singers and musicians—Jarvis Cocker, Peaches, Róisín Murphy, Sarah Blasko, Warren Ellis, Rufus Wainwright to name a few. Its purposes is to create an intimate connection between the performer and their audience, and offer a profound, larger-than-life front row experience. Live will be showing from Friday 14 to Sunday 23 January at Sydney Town Hall.

Free Sydney Festival events are always great fun. For photography lovers like myself, Exposed will be a delight. It’s an engaging and diverse collection of images showing the role photography has played in capturing different interpretations of the classic nude. Works included are by some of the greatest photographers like Max Dupan, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau. Exposed will be on from Tuesday 4 January until Friday 11 March at The Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney.

And if you’re into large-scale picnics in the park with some form of music or entertainment in the background, then head to Festival in The Domain. Especially if you are fond of Latin beats and rhythms and don’t mind a bit of a dance to the late 80s hit La Bamba! Catch the East-LA Chicano rock legends Los Lobos and the Sydney-based mariachi band The Real Mexico for a true fiesta experience on Saturday 15 January, in the Domain.

If Latino isn’t quite your cup of tea, what about a Symphony in The Domain instead? Bring your picnic rug and set up camp early to get the best spot for a night of Sydney Symphony with Bell Shakespeare and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs under the stars. Relax to tunes from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Then watch John Bell enact scenes from Shakespeare’s Henry V, accompanied by the mesmerizing Sydney Symphony and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. Symphony in The Domain is happening on Saturday 22 January.

Well, so much to see and do and so little … Enjoy!

Annie Leibovitz photography exhibition

Patti Smith with her Children, Jackson and Jesse, St. Clair Shores, Michigan 1996 Photograph © Annie Leibovitz

This summer, Sydneysiders will have a chance to see the work of one of my favourite photographers, the legendary Annie Leibovitz.

Leibovitz has been documenting American pop culture for over three decades. A lot of her work was done for popular magazines such as Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Vogue. She is extremely good in making her subjects feel comfortable and at ease, and has no trouble persuading them to do even the most awkward of things.

Featuring prominent personalities from diverse genres such as music, cinema, art, politics, etc., her photographs are always surprising and original. Perhaps the most recognizable one of them all, is the photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, shot by Leibovitz for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine on the day of Lennon’s death.

The exhibition showcases over 200 photographs selected by the artist, ranging from commercial and documentary, to those which reveal the most intimate moments in the photographer’s life.

The entry to Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life 1990–2005 exhibition will set you back $15 (or $10 with consession). The exhibition is on now and runs until Sunday 27 March 2011. Don’t miss it! For more details check out the MCA website.

Italian Film Festival 2010

Baarìa

I know Sydney’s been spoilt for choice with film festivals recently, but there is a certain excitement and anticipation I reserve for the Italian Film Festival that is very different to any other collection of films. Having studied history of Italian cinema, this may just be a subjective (or a cultural) thing. But it could also be that Italy has given us some of the most influential film directors ever and that it has produced a potpourri of brilliant and inspiring films. Every year we come to expect an explosion of passion and drama which Italian cinema is so famous for. And this year, the festival organizers didn’t shy away in highlighting this, handpicking 26 films which had just taken part in prestigious Cannes, Berlin, Rome and Venice festivals.

My list of favourites is long, but I have picked a few which I think are absolute musts. The first is the festival opening night drama La Nostra Vita, with the award winning performance by Elio Germano. It is a story of a working-class man and his family living on the outskirts of Rome and it examines some of Italy’s current and most important issues. The aspect of this film I’m looking forward to most, is the soundtrack by the Italian rock legend Vasco Rossi.

Another festival film with a noteworthy soundtrack (and the biggest film budget in Italy ever!) is Baaria. Film director Giuseppe Tornatore and the prolific and influential Italian composer Ennio Morricone have a tendency of collaborating on some very interesting work. Baaria is a portrait of a Sicilian family depicted across three generations, from 1920s to 1980s, through the eyes of the main character, Peppino. It gives us an insight of what life was like in Sicily during the Fascist era and the second World War, the liberation by the Allies and the mafia-controlled community.

Draquila—Italy Trembles (L’Italia che trema) is a documentary by the well-known actress and satirist Sabina Guzzanti who also brought us Viva Zapatero! a few years ago. Her new docco is a clever examination of the April 2009 catastrophic earthquake of L’Aquila, which killed over 300 civilians and left most of the city’s population homeless, and how the Italian government used this disaster to gain political power.

And the list of really compelling and entertaining features goes on and on … The Double Hour, The First Beautiful Thing, Cosmonaut, The Front Line just to name a few. The 11th Lavazza Italian Film Festival is showing in Palace Cinemas from Thursday 23 September until Sunday 10 October. For all the details, hit the festival website.

Sydney Latin American Film Festival

The Last Summer Of La Boyita

It’s the film festival season, all right. To launch us into a warmer part of the year, Sydney Latin American Film Festival (SLAFF) is coming to town with over 60 exciting films from all over the South and Central American region. In its 5th year, this not-for-profit, 100% volunteer-run festival, will kick off with a multi-award winning Argentine comedy A Matter of Principles on Wednesday 1 September, at the Dendy Opera Quays. This opening feature is said to be a rather funny drama and a true crowd-pleaser.

Other multi-award winning comedies, both Mexican, are Crossing and Chilango Chronicles. Crossing is about two Mexicans and their hopeless attempt to illegally cross to the US, while the latter is a surrealist take on three ‘chilangos’ (inhabitants of Mexico City) and their lives as their stories intersect. Chilango Chronicles was Mexico’s official selection for the 2010 Golden Globe Awards.

There are quite a number of very interesting documentaries this year, but these two stood out for me most: Sins Of My Father and Chasing Che. The former is a story of the infamous Columbian drug cartel boss Pablo Escobar told by his son Sebastian. It is an fascinating account of an extraordinary childhood and an intimate relationship with his father, Columbia’s public enemy number one. Chasing Che is a documentary made by an Iranian businessman who decides to venture into a four-year journey of South America and Europe in an effort to achieve a better understanding of Che and his vision.

The festival will run until Sunday 19 September at a number of venues. All proceeds from SLAFF will be going towards grassroots community development projects in Latin America. For more info and a complete screening schedule, visit the festival website.

Russian Resurrection Film Festival

Russian Resurrection Film Festival

What better way to celebrate the end of (what seemed a very long) Sydney winter than with a world-class selection of films from one of the coldest countries on this planet, Russia. In its 7th year, Russian Resurrection Film Festival brings a collection of 17 new films (plus a World War II retrospective) and is said to be the largest festival of Russian film outside Russia.

The multi-award winning features One War and How I Ended This Summer, which I failed to see at the 2010 Sydney Film Festival, are my top picks. The former is a captivating story of compassion set in World War II, while the latter is an uncanny exploration of human relationship with each other, time and space. How I Ended This Summer is set on a remote Arctic island, and is praised for its beautiful cinematography.

Two more features sparked my interest and I would be keen to see either the festival opening night romantic drama Man at the Window or Peter on His Way to Heaven, a film about a a mentally handicapped youth in a prison-camp town during Stalin’s Russia.

Russian Resurrection Film Festival opens on Thursday 19 August and runs until Wednesday 1 September 2010 at Chauvel Cinema in Paddington. A selection of films will also be shown in Burwood and Bondi Junction cinemas. For a full listing, visit the Russian Resurrection website.

Sydney Film Festival 2010

Exit Through the Gift Shop

This year’s Sydney Film Festival is jam-packed with some of the best in international and Australian features, shorts, documentaries and archive titles. The full program was announced a few weeks ago and the most popular choices such as Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop, The Messenger starring Woody Harrelson, I Am Love starring Tilda Swinton and Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer with Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall and Pierce Brosnan, have already sold out. Also shown to be very popular and now sold-out are films like New Zealand’s Boy, beautiful animation The Illusionist and Australian feature Caught Inside.

No One Knows About Persian Cats

Because I love all things related to music, I am always very excited about the ‘Sounds on Screen’ selection of films and documentaries. This year, Sydney Film Festival brings an interesting mix of music genres to the screen. Definitely worth seeing is No One Knows About Persian Cats, an Iranian documentary on the underground indie rock scene in Tehran, and The Runaways, a film based on the 70’s all-girl band from LA.

In its 57th year, Sydney Film Festival’s selection of films doesn’t seize to impress. There are hundreds of other beautiful, moving and stimulating films to be discovered. For a full list and session times, check out the festival website. Sydney Film Festival kicks off on Wednesday 2 June and finishes on Monday 14 June.

2010 Spanish Film Festival

Fernando Trueba's Belle Epoque

Hola! It’s the Spanish Film Festival time of the year again, and this year it’s jam-packed with even more Latin passion. This time around, the festival is featuring Spanish film director Fernando Trueba’s four films, including the 1993 Academy Award winner in the Best Foreign Language Film category Belle Epoque. This romantic comedy is set in pre-Franco Spain and stars young Penelope Cruz. It is a story of four sisters competing for the attention of a carefree army deserter. If you’re a big fan of Cruz, you may also want to check out the 1998 feature The Girl Of Your Dreams, also by Trueba.

Return to Hansala is one of my favourites this year, because it deals with the ever increasing and confronting issues of illegal immigration, and its terrifying consequences. The Milk Of Sorrow is another worthwhile pick, especially because it’s been nominated for 2010 Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category. The festival is showing from Wednesday 5 to Sunday 16 May. For more films and a screening timetable, check out the Spanish Film Festival website.

Festival of German Films

Whisky with Vodka at the 2010 Audi Festival of German Films

Herzlich Willkommen. From Wednesday 21 April, the crème de la crème of German cinema will hit our little town. The two-week festival will showcase over 30 titles across a number of different genres. The opening choice for this year is a highly entertaining ‘culinary comedy’ Whisky with Vodka. In the ‘German currents’ category of films, Storm and The White Ribbon look very thought-provoking, while ‘Berlin based’ category offers original and compelling stories in The Wolves of Berlin and Berlin’36. Audi Festival of German Films screens at Palace Norton Street Leichhardt and Chauvel Cinema Paddington Townhall until Sunday 2 May.

Surry Hills Festival

Surry Hills Festival

Any plans for next weekend? The annual Surry Hills Festival is on, where you can check out some live bands, savour delicious multi-culti foods, bump into familiar faces and enjoy the last of warm and sunny days (probably not). The festival has temporarily moved to its old location, Shannon Reserve on Crown Street, with the addition of a second entertainment stage and more stalls located in Ward Park on Devonshire Street. In live bands world, my highlights are Belles Will Ring and Jonathan Boulet in Ward Park, and The Paper Scissors and The Ray Mann Three in Shannon Reserve. Make sure you get there nice and early if you’re into dog shows and pick up poo races. The weather forecast for Saturday is not so great, maybe opt for a pair of gumboots and a brollie. More info and full entertainment lineup is right here.