2010 Hola Mexico Film Festival

Alamar (To The Sea)

Hola Mexico Film Festival, the biggest Mexican film festival in the world, is back again with a splendid collection of feature films and documentaries. Kicking off in Sydney tomorrow, Thursday 3 November, it will be showing at Dendy Newtown and Dendy Opera Quays until Sunday 14 November.

2010 marks the centenary of the Mexican revolution, and to celebrate this important milestone, 10 leading Mexican directors have joined forces and produced a compilation of 10 short films under the title Revolucion. The short films explore the idea of revolution and what it means to young Mexicans today.

My picks Alamar, Año Bisiesto and Norteado are all multi-award winning films, promising captivating stories about love, solitude and hope. With a selection of colourful and inspiring characters, these features are fueled with diversity, energy and passion staying true to its Latin American roots.

For more details and a full list of feature films and documentaries and their screening times, check 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.