IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

Highlights of Adelaide Film Festival 2005 Announced

South Australian Premier Mike Rann and Adelaide Film Festival Director Katrina Sedgwick today launched the poster and highlights for the biennial Adelaide Film Festival 2005.

The critically acclaimed biennial Adelaide Film Festival (AFF) will again be a celebration of THE SCREEN, with over 190 sessions running over thirteen days and nights from 18 February to 3 March (an additional five days on the 2003 Film Festival).

The AFF 2005 also moves its core-screening program to Adelaide’s West End with the hub at the Greater Union Hindley Street complex together with the nearby Mercury Cinema.

Katrina Sedgwick said: “The AFF 2005 will present some of the best of Australian and international feature film, documentary, shorts and animation programs plus cutting edge music video, computer games, on-line and new media screenings. The Festival’s dynamic special events program includes live performances, groundbreaking exhibitions, inventive installations, forums and workshops.”

Documentary films will be a special feature of the AFF ‘05 at a time when these films have never been more popular at the box office. The AFF ‘05 collaborates for the first time with the prestigious Australian International Documentary Conference [February 21 – 24] presenting their public screening program of the best in international documentary.

AFF 2005 program highlights announced today comprise:

• Seven titles from the AFF Cinema Screening Program comprising six Australian premieres and one world premiere. These include the world premiere of Look Both Ways – Australia; Moolaadé – Senegal; Checkpoint (Machssomim) – Israel; Machuca – Chile; Incident at Loch Ness – USA; Control (Kontrol) – Hungary; and Day and Night – China.





-2-

• The screening of six titles from the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund, a commissioning fund made possible through the Government of South Australia for equity investment in Australian screen productions. The AFFIF is one of the Festival’s features and points of difference to other Festivals. The AFF 2005 will screen one of the first completed projects from the AFF Investment Fund, including the world premieres of multi award winning Sarah Watt’s debut feature film Look Both Ways, a wonderful bio pic on the legendary Spike Milligan, I Told You I was ill: Spike Milligan, a multi platform project UsMob.com.au, and short films Nascent, Fritz Gets Rich and Azadi.

• The Screen Goddess marks a new series of screenings to pay homage to the world’s legendary female film icons beginning with Marilyn Monroe in the all time favourite Some Like it Hot …

• Especially for children, comes a selection of the best films from the celebrated Giffoni Film Festival, which is held annually in the village of Giffoni in the Campagna Region of Italy. The films at Giffoni are voted on by thousands of children from around the world (aged 6 – 18) who select their best films of the year. Forums and discussions, for and by children, will accompany the Adelaide screenings.

• Music on Film - the return of this popular strand to the AFF 2005 will again see the exploration of music ON film and music FOR film including documentaries about music and musicians, music video in the return of Mirrorball from the Edinburgh Film Festival, and a special spotlight on composition for film. A special overseas guest will be Grammy Award winner and Oscar Nominee Lalo Schifrin, a remarkable pianist, composer and conductor who has written almost 100 scores for film and television including: Bullitt, Cool Hand Luke, Enter The Dragon, Dirty Harry and most famously the theme for Mission Impossible. Lalo Schifrin will be In Conversation accompanied by screenings of three of his classic films.

• Music on Film will also present Bugs Bunny on Broadway with Bugs’ famous Warner Bros opera and orchestral cartoon antics on the big screen accompanied live by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. A further highlight announcement is a screening of Fritz Lang’s classic 1926 silent film Metropolis accompanied by the world premiere of a new contemporary score composed and performed live by electronic music duo The New Pollutants.
• Central to the AFF is a Forum and Workshop Program that extends the opportunity for audiences to interact with national and international filmmakers. Meet the Filmmaker sessions will explore the inspiration behind the films featured in the Festival while the workshops include a three-day intensive program with award winning British animators Shynola; meanwhile KINOlab, housed in a site in the heart of the AFF will facilitate teams of roving filmmakers to write/shoot/edit and screen a short film every two days with Montreal based film dynamos KINO; then miniSeries a mini movie fest for mobile phones, explores the creative side of handheld devices including an international showcase of some of the finest contemporary narrative and experimental movies and animations made for mobiles, with workshops hosted by The-Phone-Book-Ltd (UK)


The Adelaide Film festival Gala Opening Night will be held at 7.30pm Friday February 18 at Her Majesty’s Theatre with a cocktail party afterwards at the Adelaide Town Hall. The opening film will be announced in January 2005.