To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Australia's stunning and awe-inspiring 'great lost film', SWIFF presents an original live soundtrack screening of Ted Kotcheff’s 1971 vivid outback sunburner, Wake In Fright.
The reimagined soundtrack, composed and performed by bluesmen ramblers Rhyece O’Neill Band, is a feature-length celebration of a unique piece of cinema history. Rhyece O’Neill’s original soundtrack is a desert blues interpretation featuring gothic blues guitar, driving bass and boogie, with psychotic drums providing a truly stunning context for the film’s dialogue and subject matter.
SWIFF LIVE
WAKE IN FRIGHT – FEATURING RHYECE O’NEILL BAND
Dir. TED KOTCHEFF · 120 MINS · M · AUS
FRIDAY APR 16 · 8.15PM
Starring SWIFF Festival Patron Jack Thompson, Wake In Fright is one of only two films to ever be screened twice at the Cannes Film Festival – once on release, and once on re-mastering in 2009 when selected by Martin Scorsese as part of his Director’s Fortnight curated program. Wake In Fright was nearly lost permanently to the ages, with no prints available, before a 35mm print was found by the film’s editor in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, sitting in a box marked “for destruction”.
Now a worldwide iconic cult classic, infamous for its raw, unflinching portrait of life in isolation in the Outback, Wake In Fright gets the big screen treatment at SWIFF.
Painstakingly restored by Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive and AtLab Deluxe, presented in its original uncompromising form together with a re-imagined, original soundtrack – an incredible experience not to be missed!
“An undisputed masterpiece… extraordinary”- Herald-Sun
Contains high impact scenes
