SWIFF 20
During the doldrums of the Thatcher years, there’s not much for a bright UK teenager to do in the drab factory town of Luton, England, except plot how to get out. It’s worse if you, like Javed (Viveik Kalra), are pressured by your embittered workaholic father, worse still if you’re menaced by racist skinheads. But …
Topping both best of the year and best of the decade lists, Céline Sciamma’s (Girlhood, SWIFF ’16) latest is a devastatingly beautiful period drama about the romance between artist and subject. Brittany, France, 1760. Marianne (Noemie Merlant), a painter, is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adele Haenel, Deerskin SWIFF’20). A reluctant bride-to-be, …
Nominee · Documentary Foundation Australia Award. Four years after controversial, temporarily-banned film, Gayby Baby (SWIFF’16), Maya Newell crafts another powerful portrait of Australian youth, this time focusing her lens on the world of Northern Territory’s Indigenous children. “I was born a little Aboriginal kid,” explains Dujuan. “That means I had a memory – a memory …
Journalist Freddy McConnell is ready to start his family, solo if necessary. Freddy is in a unique position. As a transgender man, he desires to carry and give birth to his child. With candid access to Freddy’s journey, documentarian Jeanie Finlay follows the three-year journey at every scan, doctor’s visit, and emotional challenge. At first, …
Winner · Fantastic Fest · Best Director. Cut from a different creative cloth, British visionary Peter Strickland (The Duke of Burgundy, SWIFF ’16) delivers a screamingly funny, exquisitely tactile, deathly dark tale of a killer red dress. Lonely heart bank-teller Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Broadchurch) is divorced from her husband, distressed by her bosses (a delightful …
In her English-language debut, Dutch writer-director Sacha Polak (Hemel, Zurich) takes a hard look at the gross discrepancy that underlies society’s perception of external beauty versus internal worthiness. After a vicious acid attack leaves half her body covered in scars, Jade (spellbinding newcomer, Vicky Knight) must come to terms with the new life ahead of …
Winner, 2019 People’s Choice Award, Toronto International Film Festival. Launching the most ambitious program to date, SWIFF 2020’s Opening Night Gala ushers in a new decade and a new cache of films to intrigue, entertain, and disrupt. Taika Waititi has carved a meteoric career from independent filmmaker to a big budget master of comedy. Given …
SWIFF 2020 Preview Gala Film Announced Saturday, December 7th at the Jetty Memorial Theatre This Summer will see audiences flock to the Coffs Coast in their thousands to attend the Screenwave International Film Festival, which confirmed its fifth festival dates this week, presented across 16 days from 9th to the 24th January 2020. The line-up …
Arts Mid North Coast presents SWIFF Industry Connect ’20 – the Mid North Coast’s annual film industry networking event. Industry Connect provides an opportunity for regional and travelling filmmakers to connect, to foster collaboration, and to build pathways to new productions for the region. At SWIFF Industry Connect ‘20, attendees will hear from a number …
