Variety of festival films
THIS year’s Melbourne International Film Festival gets underway on Thursday, July 31 with the Australian premiere of the Spierig Brothers’ new thriller, Predestination starring Ethan Hawke and Noah Taylor.
The festival, which runs until August 17 at cinemas around the city, features more than 300 films from around the world, including some with Jewish themes and directors.
Since 2008, New York photographer Ari Seth Cohen has been snapping fashionable senior citizens for his popular street-style blog, Advanced Style. Now, with help from fashion videographer Lina Plioplyte, he’s bringing these vivacious, vibrant and outspoken older ladies to the big screen.
Ranging in age from 60 to 90 years old, the women (and gentleman) of Advanced Style offer proof that age is no barrier to being fabulous. Their passion, energy and creativity provide a masterclass in living life to the fullest.
Veteran Jewish director Frederick Wiseman is best known for his observational ability to capture the “essence” of American institutions such as hospitals, high schools, parks and prisons.
This year, his two most recent films are being screened: National Gallery, about the iconic London gallery and the its artworks, and the epic 244-minute At Berkeley, about the University of California campus.
In Love is Strange, gay Jewish filmmaker Ira Sachs tells a touching story of two elderly men (played by John Lithgow and Alfred Molina) who plan to marry after living together for 39 years. However, when news of the nuptials reaches the Catholic school where one of them works, he is sacked and their relationship is put to the test.
American husband-and-wife Jewish filmmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine have used original photographs and archival footage from the 1930s for their documentary The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden.
In 1929, Berlin physician Dr Friedrich Ritter and his mistress Dore Strauch leave German society for exotic, uninhabited Floreana Island in the Galapagos archipelago, seeking a pioneering seclusion. But when other idealists arrive on the island, the tranquillity is shattered. The documentary features the voices of Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger and Sebastian Koch.
Melbourne Jewish director Justin Olstein, who made the short film Adam’s Tallit set around a Holocaust survivor, premieres Curtain Call, an 80-minute film about the lives of Terry and Carole Ann Gill, whose lifetime of working in a successful theatre is threatened by a property developer.
Jerusalem 3D is a 45-minute IMAX film that explores Jerusalem’s holiest sites for Jews, Christians and Muslims with a special emphasis on the city’s architecture and art.
Joe Berlinger’s Whitey: United States of America v James J Bulger takes a close look at the complex 2011 trial of James “Whitey” Bolger, the infamous head of Boston’s underworld.
Jewish physicist-turned-filmmaker Mark Levinson tells the story behind an extraordinary feat of scientific endeavour in Particle Fever – the Large Hadron Collider’s discovery of the Higgs boson “God’s particle”.
Melbourne filmmaker Natasha Pincus premieres the psychological thriller Fell about the victim of a hit-and-run accident who seeks retribution from the killer after he is released from prison.
The Melbourne International Film Festival runs from July 31 to August 17. Bookings: www.miff.com.au.
REPORT by Danny Gocs
PHOTO from Ari Seth Cohen’s Advanced Style.
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