Nobody wants to be like Ingrid. ‘Where’s my phone?’ This is the first thing Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza) says after waking up in the hospital, towards the end of the film. A social media addict, Ingrid has invested the entirety…
‘Because I had this privileged access, I felt like it was my responsibility to tell this story that was authentic.’ The balance between comedy and drama is a crucial one. Offset by a flicker of a facial expression or a…
With over 100 performances under their belt, Underground Cinema (UGC) has honed the art of tease and surprise. With the intension of “Taking cinema out of the cinema” the UGC crew screen films in secret locations in Melbourne and Sydney…
American film critic Roger Ebert said that ‘Modern movies begin … with Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless’, and its lead actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo, had a lot to do with that. Belmondo’s Michel, eternally with a cigarette in his mouth, at once satirised…
Since Antonio Zeccola founded it in 2000, Melbourne’s Lavazza Italian Film Festival 2017 has grown to become the biggest celebration of Italian cinema outside of its home country. Every year, the festival brings the nation’s freshest talent and most exciting…
A trailer for our planet – if it were filmed by aliens. Say what you will about Terrence Malick – that his dialogue is insufferable; that, since The Tree Of Life (which was iffy at best) the quality of his…
Animated Iranian film draws starkly realist depiction of modern-day Tehran. Director Ali Soozandeh has made a film that he knows won’t be shown on television or in cinemas in his home country, where the film is set. For a film…
Swedish film The Square is making its Australian debut at Melbourne’s most wonderful film festival, MIFF. After taking out the 2017 Cannes Palm d’Or, my fellow movie-watching crew and I had high hopes for filmmaker Ruben Östlund’s unusual and inventive…
A triumph of American independent filmmaking. Sometimes at a film festival, your biggest takeaway from a screening is, ‘I need to see that again.’ This was mine after seeing Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s The Endless, a film the duo…
The Wound is the directorial debut from filmmaker John Trengove that has been receiving some hot debate about its controversial look at the clash of tradition and modernity in South Africa. On a chilly Melbourne evening we made our way…