Timothy David’s South Australian-shot debut feature Kangaroo Island will close this year’s Adelaide Film Festival (AFF), joining more than 110 films from 46 countries at the event.
Written by Sally Gifford, the dramedy stars Rebecca Breeds as Lou Wells, a struggling Hollywood actress who has hit rock bottom only a few years after being touted as the next big thing.
Broke and aimless, she reluctantly accepts a ticket from her estranged father, Rory (Erik Thomson), home to Kangaroo Island, and confronts the love triangle that tore her family apart.
David, also a producer on the film, will appear as a guest of AFF, alongside Breeds, Thomson, Gifford, and SA-based producing pair Peter Hanlon and Bettina Hamilton.
It is one of 15 titles to have their world premiere at this year’s festival, which will be held from October 23– November 3. They include the previously announced opening night gala film The Correspondent, based on Peter Greste’s 2017 memoir The First Casualty, with director Kriv Stenders, actor Richard Roxborough, and Greste to join journalist Hamish McDonald for a panel discussion on Thursday, October 24.
Tuesday’s line-up announcement included the unveiling of the AFF Jury, which this year comprises Preciosa Media CEO Claudia Rodríguez Valencia, former Film Bazaar director Leena Khobragade, Closer Productions founder and co-director Matthew Bate, Melbourne-based film journalist and critic Stephen A Russell, and Blackfella Films head of scripted Penny Smallacombe.
They will be tasked with adjudicating the AFF feature fiction and documentary competitions, which comprise five films each.
Competing for the fiction prize are India Donaldson’s Good One, Sarra Tsorakidis’ Ink Wash, Jatla Siddartha’s In The Belly of the Tiger, Peter Hoogendoorn’s Three Days of Fish, and Australian director Samuel Van Grinsven’s psychological thriller Went Up the Hill, starring Dacre Montgomery and Vicky Krieps. Siddartha, from India, will also appear as a guest of the festival.
In the feature documentary competition field, Australian filmmaker Wendy Champagne’s chronicle of the 1973 Aquarius Festival in Nimbin, Aquarius, is joined by Michael Premo’s Homegrown, Klára Tasovská’s I’m Not Everything I Want to Be, Martin Fournier’s Simon and Marianne, and Gabrielle Brady’s The Wolves Always Come at Night.
Also awarded as part of the festival is the AFF Influential Change Award, established in 2020 for cinema with a positive or environmental impact and which express new directions for humanity. Of five films contending for the $5,000 cash prize, there is Australian filmmaker Sally Aitken’s Every Little Thing, Petr Lom’s I Am the River, the River Is Me, Ben Addelman and Ziya Tong’s Plastic People: The Hidden Crisis of Microplastics, Kosai Sekine’s Dust to Dust, and Stephen Maing and Brett Story’s Union. The 2024 Influential Change Award jury features campaigner Aira Firdaus, marine biologist Anita Thomas, and producer Bonnie McBride.
Outside of the film prizes, legendary cinematographer and director Don McAlpine will be recognised with this year’s Don Dunstan Award, given to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to Australian screen culture. McAlpine, known for his work on Predator, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, Peter Pan, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, will appear in conversation with director and newly announced AFF patron, Sophie Hyde, to discuss his celebrated career.
Other festival highlights include AFF Special Presentations, featuring screenings of Morgan Neville’s Piece by Piece and Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch, both of which screened at Toronto, along with Steve McQueen’s Blitz, Matthias Glasner’s Dying, and Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winning Anora.
There will also be a focus on Indian cinema as part of the AFF’s Country Spotlight, with Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, the Australian premiere of Lakshmipriya Devi’s Boong, Anirban Dutta’s Sundance-winning Nocturnes, and Subhadra Mahajan’s Second Chance, joining the aforementioned In The Belly of the Tiger in the line-up.
Locally, eight AFF Investment Fund (AFFIF)- supported feature projects will premiere – Leela Varghese and Emma Hough Hobbs’ Lesbian Space Princess, Kate Blackmore’s Make It Look Real, Larissa Behrendt’s One Mind, One Heart, Shalom Almond’s Songs Inside, Zak Hilditch’s We Bury The Dead, and Kelly Schilling’s With or Without You.
Speaking about this year’s line-up, AFF CEO and creative director Mat Kesting said the festival aimed to inform, provoke and entertain.
“Cinema brings people together for a chance to meet and reflect on where humanity and the world is at, and AFF 2024 offers a selection of extraordinary films that reflect the interesting times in which we live,” he said.
“Have some fun and put your dancing shoes on for our three galas and be sure to buy a film pass so that you can see as many of these remarkable films as possible.”
Find the full line-up here.