QFF co-directors Huw Walmsley-Evans and John Edmond.
Queensland Film Festival (QFF) has unveiled the program for its second year, to be held July 15-24 at New Farm Cinemas and the Institute of Modern Art.
The festival, which has doubled in size this year, will screen 40 features and shorts, including 19 Australian premieres.
Festival co-directors John Edmond and Huw Walmsley-Evans said QFF's 2016 return is a direct result of an enthusiastic response to last year’s program.
“Strong community support from both our partners and the general public has ensured that we could increase the number of screenings, and these are films that it’s important that the Brisbane public have a chance to see," Edmond said.
Walmsley-Evans said: "QFF's first year proved what we knew to be true: Brisbane wants to see the best that the thriving world cinema has to offer.”
QFF will open with Pedro Almodovar’s Julieta, screening direct from Cannes. Other highlights include The Red Turtle, Michael Dudock de Wit's dialogue-free collaboration with animation house Studio Ghibli; Chevalier; Lucile Hadžihalilovic’s Evolution; and Dead Slow Ahead.
Local films will include Sean Byrne’s (The Loved Ones) horror The Devil’s Candy and Sydney-based Margot Nash’s documentary essay The Silences.
In a nod to now-lost film festivals of Brisbane’s past, QFF will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first-ever Brisbane Film Festival with a restoration of Agnes Varda’s Cleo From 5 to 7, as well as a selection of shorts that screened at the first event.
It will similarly mark the 25th anniversary of the Brisbane International Film Festival with a screening of David Cronenberg’s classic adaptation of William Burrough’s Naked Lunch.
There will also be free panels discussions regarding the art and history of filmmaking, including The Art and Craft of Editing in Eugène Green’s La Sapienza and The Son of Joseph, presented with the Australian Screen Editor’s guild and the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions.
The festival will also reflect on the history of Brisbane film culture with Fifty Years of Film Festivals – Remembering BFF, courtesy of a presentation by QFF co-director Huw Walmsley-Evans and Queensland University of Technology’s (QUT) Dr Tess Van Hemert.
QUT is the festival’s major partner. QFF is also supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, Australian Screen Editors Guild, Avant Card, the Cantrills, the Czech and Slovak Film Festival, David Stratton, the Institute of Modern Art, the National Film and Sound Archive, and New Farm Cinemas
Full program and ticket sales: qldff.com