These Australian films are screening at the 52nd
annual Sydney Film Festival. Edited by ASE members and based on the
lives of people here in Australia they are reccommended viewing.
The first two films listed here, will be introduced by their Directors and feature a question
and answer session at the end of the screenings. Girl in a Mirror was edited by Anna Craney, Silma's Scool was edited by Harriet Clutterbuck.
The Men Who Would Conquer China was edited by Jane St Vincent Welch who won the AFI Award for Best Editing of a Documentary for her work on this film. Yellow Fella, edited by Alison Croft screened in "Un Certain Regard" at Cannes.
Girl In A Mirror
Documentary / 55 minutes / Kathy Drayton
Editor: Anna Craney
Consultant Editor: Nick Meyers
Screening Time(s):
State Theatre - Thursday June 16 - 5:00pm
Art Gallery of NSW - Monday June 20 - 3:30pm.
Country / Language
Australia. In English.
Synopsis
Carol Jerrems wasn't the kind of photographer - or indeed personality-
to stay on one side of the camera. The Australian's haunting face
appears throughout her work; she even documented her own tragic death.
That's not to say that Carol didn't turn her lens elsewhere - most
famously she produced the iconic image Vale Street. What makes Girl in
a Mirror so compelling is that it encompasses not only Carol's life,
but also the counter-culture spirit of Sydney in the '70s, the era and
place she documented with such passion and clarity. Packed with
fabulous images and interviews with subjects and friends such as Paul
Cox and Esben Storm.
Special Guests- Director Kathy Drayton and
producer Helen Bowden will introduce both screenings and take questions
afterwards.
Silma's School
Documentary / 90 minutes / Jane Jeffes
Editor: Harriet Clutterbuck
Screening Time(s):
State Theatre - Saturday June 18 - 12:10pm
State Theatre - Sunday June 19 - 5:00pm
Country / Language
Australia. In English.
Synopsis
The issue of what it means to be a Muslim in today's Western society
crops up in several SFF05 films but none brings it so close to home as
Silma's School. This is an eye-opening documentary (directed by Jane
Jeffes) about the Noor Al Houda Islamic College in Western Sydney and
its struggle to survive, focusing on the epic legal battle (straight
out of The Castle!) between the college and the Federal Airports
Corporation and Bankstown Airport authority, on whose contaminated land
it initially settled in 1995. The scenes of school life are equally
fascinating as tough school founder Silma Ihram debates "an eye for an
eye'' and the Palestinian problem with her pupils.
Special Guest,
director Jane Jeffes will introduce both screenings and take questions
afterwards.
The Men Who Would Conquer China
Short / Nick Torrens, Jane St. Vincent Welch
Editor: Jane St. Vincent Welch
Screening Time(s):
State Theatre - Saturday June 25 - 10:35am
Country / Language
Australia. In English.
Synopsis
An acutely ironic observation of the frontline of West-East capitalism,
where Americans and the Chinese are locked together by perceived mutual
advantage.
Yellow Fella
Short / 27 minutes / Ivan Sen
Editor: Alison Croft
Screening Time(s):
Dendy Opera Quays - Tuesday June 14 - 1:00pm
Dendy Opera Quays - Tuesday June 14 - 6:15pm
Synopsis
In 1978, Tom Lewis appeared in the Australian feature, The Chant of
Jimmy Blacksmith. The character he played was hauntingly close to his
own; a restless young man of mixed heritage (his mother a traditional
Indigenous woman, his father a Welsh stockman). Ivan Sen's immensely
moving documentary has been selected for this year's Cannes Film
Festival. Screens with Rosalie's Journeyand Karli Jalangu.
