A total of six Australian projects have been invited to screen at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival next year.
The South Australian project Sam Klemke's Time Machine will have its world premiere in the New Frontier Film section while Oscar Raby’s Assent will screen in the New Frontier Installations section.
In the Sundance Shorts Competition, Kitty Green’s The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul will have its world premiere as well as Tim Marshall’s Followers.
This adds to the previously announced screenings of Kim Kim Farrant’s Strangerland, starring Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes and Hugo Weaving, and Ariel Kleiman’s Partisan, starring Vincent Cassel, which will screen in competition in the World Cinema Dramatic program.
In a statement released to the media, CEO of Screen Australia, Graeme Mason, said, “It is a great honour to have six of our skilful filmmakers recognised by the leading indie film festival in the world. Having their work premiere at such a highly competitive festival is a fantastic opportunity for these filmmakers to showcase their talent. It is particularly special to have such an eclectic range of Australian projects invited to the festival, from shorts to feature films, to feature and immersive documentaries – this demonstrates the breadth of remarkable projects Australia produces.”
See below for more information on the films.
The Sundance Film Festival will take place 22 January – 1 February 2015.
Category: WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC
STRANGERLAND
World premiere
Dragonfly Pictures and Fastnet Films
Co-finance/Executive Producers Worldview Entertainment
Producers Naomi Wenck, Macdara Kelleher
Executive Producers Molly Conners, Maria Cestone, Sarah E Johnson, Adriana L Randall, Bryce Menzies, Andrew Mackie, Richard Payten
Story by Fiona Seres
Screenplay Fiona Seres, Michael Kinirons
Director Kim Farrant
Cast Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes, Hugo Weaving, Lisa Flanagan, Meyne Wyatt, Maddison Brown, Nicholas Hamilton
International Sales Wild Bunch
US Sales CAA/Worldview
Australian Distributor Transmission
Synopsis When Catherine and Matthew Parker’s two teenage children disappear into the remote Australian desert, their relationship is pushed to the brink as they confront the mystery of their children’s fate.
PARTISAN
World premiere
Warp Films Australia Pty Ltd
Producers Anna McLeish, Sarah Shaw
Director Ariel Kleiman
Writers Ariel Kleiman, Sarah Cyngler
Australian Distributor Madman Entertainment
International Sales Protagonist Pictures
US Sales Protagonist Pictures and UTA
Synopsis A confronting tale about Alexander who, raised to see the world through Gregori’s eyes, is starting to think for himself.
Category: NEW FRONTIER PROGRAM
SAM KLEMKE’S TIME MACHINE
World premiere
Closer Productions
Producer Rebecca Summerton
Writer/Director Matthew Bate
International Sales Visit Films
US Sales Visit Films
Australian Distributor Closer Screens
Synopsis In 1977, teenager Sam Klemke began a project to obsessively film and narrate every year of his life in an attempt to understand himself. Also in 1977, NASA sent into space the Golden Record: an audiovisual self-portrait of humanity that would allow extraterrestrials to understand who we are. Although travelling parallel through time, these two self-portraits tell very different sides of the human story. Sam Klemke’s Time Machine moves us from the infinity of space to the raw intimacy of the life of an extraordinary nobody to look at what it means to be human.
ASSENT
Centre for Animation and Interactive Media, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
Writer/Director/Producer Oscar Raby
International Sales Katy Morrison
Synopsis In Chile, 1973, my father witnessed the execution of a group of prisoners captured by the military regime – an army that he was himself a part of. Using virtual reality, Assent puts the user in my father’s boots as we walk to the place where that happened. An immersive documentary experience that plays out in the virtual past.
Category: SUNDANCE SHORTS
THE FACE OF UKRAINE: CASTING OKSANA BAIUL
World premiere
Film Camp Pty Ltd
Producers Kitty Green, Philippa Campey, Michael Latham
Writer/Director Kitty Green
International Sales Film Camp Pty Ltd
Synopsis Adorned in pink sequins, little girls from across a divided, war-torn Ukraine audition to play the role of gold medal–winning figure skater Oksana Baiul, whose tears of joy once united their troubled country.
FOLLOWERS
World premiere
aSymmetry Film/Christina Radburn/The Festivals Company
Producers Christina Radburn, Grant Vidgen
Executive Producer Berwyn Rowlands
Writer/Director Tim Marshall
International & US Sales Christina Radburn, Grant Vidgen
Synopsis When an elderly woman sees a vision of Jesus on the shorts of a young African man at her swimming class, she befriends him, believing God has sent him to free her from her loneliness. Followers is a dark-comedy drama about faith and loneliness, and how the two intertwine.