Earlier this week, the arts and entertainment media gathered for the launch preview of the 2014 Big Picture Film Festival. The Big Picture Film Festival is the most unique film festival in Australia, showcasing exciting films from around the world that celebrate the struggle for social justice.
After a hugely successful inaugural season earlier this year the festival will return in 2014 with an enlarged program including both documentary and dramatic films.
"We'll be combining such major festivals as Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Venice, Montreal, Telluride, Toronto and London for films – both fiction and documentary – that confront the most pressing social justice concerns of the day in a progressive and positive manner”, said Program Director, Eddie Cockrell.
At last nights preview it was announced that the stunning new Australian documentary, Once My Mother would have its Sydney premiere at The Big Picture Film Festival in 2014. Hailed by Peter Weir as "epic" and by Bruce Beresford as "inspiring", Once My Mother interweaves a mother and daughter’s narratives in a powerful portrayal of resilience and survival.
Also confirmed for the 2014 festival was the exciting new dramatic Dutch film De Nieuwe Wereld (The New World) in which a chance meeting between a Dutch cleaner and an African asylum seeker leads to an unexpected relationship and two extraordinary weeks.
The Big Picture Film Festival
"Both of these stirring works deal directly with the refugee and immigration issues that are at present so contentious here in Australia and bound to become more so in the wake of the election," said Eddie Cockrell.
Owing to the significant interest shown by western Sydney filmgoers at the inaugural Big PIcture Film Festival, next year the festival will expand its screen locations Event Cinemas in Liverpool as well as the city.
The Big Picture Film Festival will run from 19-26 March, 2014.