By Simon de Bruyn
Long time Paul Cox collaborator Chris Haywood will be in attendance this weekend at Filmfest@falls for the festival’s retrospective of the auteur’s work.
Festival director and founder Sally Hussey said it was time for a considered overview of Cox’s work, and will open the festival with a screening of Lonely Hearts.
“We could potentially do one every year considering his output. It’s quite a considered overview and gives a broad overarching view of his work. Paul Cox couldn’t attend but we have actor Chris Haywood in his place; he has been in 15 of his films,” she said.
“We also have an experimental program of films from Paris that works in well with his methodology, of using the same crew and cast, often with the same people working in front of and behind the camera.”
The festival will also host a script in the raw reading of comedian Shaun Micallef’s first foray into feature film writing, Teacher Boy. Previous scripts have included Michael Henry’s A Kind of Hush and Julius Avery’s End of Town.
The Shorts@falls competition has been enhanced this year, with Digital Pictures chipping in an additional $20,000 digital post production prize for best director, in addition to the $50,000 Deluxe/Kodak prize which enables the winner to create another short on 16mm film, with full post production.
Filmfest@falls spans the Queen’s birthday weekend and celebrates the opening of ski season, 5-7 June 2009, in Falls Creek.