Festivalgoers across the Coffs Coast are busy watching movies, attending Q&As, and experiencing all the wonderful and unique events SWIFF brings to Coffs Harbour and Bellingen this year. This weekend promises to be a movie lover’s paradise – here’s what’s coming this weekend.
Bellingen Memorial Hall will be back in full festival swing on Friday, alongside CHEC Theatre and Jetty Theatre. See the delicate human three-hander set in Morocco, The Blue Caftan, followed by the wonderful and heartfelt coming-of-age drama Close for a second screening in Bellingen. Then the iconic cult slacker comedy classic, The Big Lebowski, gets the big screen treatment for The Dude’s 25th anniversary.
Over at CHEC Theatre kicks off the day with the fierce music documentary Sirens, The Road to Patagonia will play to a packed house, before the cringe-inducing laugh-out-loud I love My Dad.
Jetty Theatre screens the film-on-film documentary Only In Theaters, documenting one family’s dedication to the art of going to the movies, then the gorgeously ethereal Australian drama Of An Age in the evening, before Palme d’Or winning satire Triangle of Sadness, starring Woody Harrelson.
Close
Keep Stepping
Sunday marks the last day of SWIFF’23 at Bellingen Memorial Hall, but it’s going out with a bang with another sold out screening of The Giants a screening of the quietly gorgeous EO, and the last film of Bellingen Memorial Hall, a session of The Road to Patagonia, and short film Return Chute: Survival of a Small Town Video Store before we shut the doors and say “see you next year, Bello!”
The party goes on at CHEC Theatre, with a screening of the cutest film of the festival, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, before Patrix brings down the house with another performance and Q&A screening of Keep Stepping. Neptune Frost closes out the night at CHEC, the sci-fi punk musical by Saul Williams already having wowed audiences in Bellingen.
Over at the Jetty Theatre, audiences will have the pleasure of hearing Musafar Ali’s incredible story after a screening of Watandar, My Countryman with director Jolyon Hoff, before an anniversary screening of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, starring David Bowie, Takeshi Kitano, and Jack Thompson.
Saturday kicks it up a notch with festival guests abound! See Sydney dancer Patrix give a knockout performance live on stage at Bellingen Memorial Hall after a screening of Sydney competitive street dance doco Keep Stepping, followed by a Q&A with Patrix and director Luke Cornish, followed by a screening of the wonderful documentary about finding your identity as a newcomer in Australia, Watandar, My Countryman, featuring a Q&A with director Jolyon Hoff and documentary subject Musafar Ali.
Over at CHEC Theatre we kick off the day with stunning, explosive love story Fire of Love, then a screening of beautiful Italian friendship drama The Eight Mountains, followed by the last screening of SWIFF’23 Opening Night film, The Survival of Kindness.
Jetty Theatre has a huge day Saturday, with a sold out screening of The Giants, featuring a Q&A with activist and environmentalist, Bob Brown. In the evening, audiences are treated Broker, a charming dramady from Kore-eda Hirokazu, director of the Palme d’Or winning Shoplifters.
Watandar, My Countryman
This is just a taste of what’s coming up this weekend at SWIFF, check out the full program below.