Umbrella Entertainment has remastered more than 100 Australian films, featuring everything from star-studded lineups, 20th century Australia critiques, and features told from fatalistic perspectives.
Umbrella has restored the original source materials alongside the filmmakers to ensure their quality and preserve their cultural significance, such as 70s classic Wake in Fright.
The film was missing for almost three decades after a lowly box-office performance despite earning a nomination at the Grand Prix du Festival for the 24th Cannes Film Festival.
Directed by Canadian Ted Kotcheff and filmed across NSW, the 1971 thriller explores a school teacher’s hellish experience when he enters a town full of deranged, drunken and destructive men who threaten to make him like them.
The film is regarded as pivotal for Australian cinema due to its critique of hyper-masculine norms.
But, in 2002, it was found by producer Anthony Buckley in a box labelled “for destruction” over 15,000 kilometres away in Pittsburg.
The restoration has recently premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin, the Philadelphia Film Festival, and the Brooklyn Horror Festival. Other recently restored films have also been shown internationally, such as at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain, the Leeds Film Festival in England and the Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival in France.
One of the other highlights in Umbrella’s collection is Metal Skin, a 1994 drama featuring Ben Mendelsohn.
The plot follows a story of desire to demise in a very short timeframe where a blue-collar teenager named Joe navigates living in the working-class suburbs of Melbourne.
As a man who loves his cars and is yearning for a girlfriend, he meets Savina, a devil worshipper.
But instead of Savina falling in love with him, she falls for Dazey (Mendelsohn’s character).
Dazey and Joe are good friends who bonded together over cars, but when Joe finds out about Dazey and Savina, he embarks on a fatalistic riot.
Susan Sarandon and Emily Blunt’s 2006 film Irresistible is also part of the collection.
Written and directed by Ann Turner, Irresistible tells a story of paranoia and obsession where Sarandon’s character, Sophie suspects that a stalker is responsible for objects going missing in her house.
Sophie then meets Mara (Emily Blunt), a new co-worker of her husband, and she grows suspicious that he is cheating on her with Mara.
After stalking Mara and breaking into her house, her paranoia leads to restraining orders from Mara and her husband becomes concerned for her health.
When Mara is busy seducing Sophie’s husband at the office, Sophie is at Mara’s house and finds her missing items.
It is then revealed that Mara is Sophie’s daughter and was trying to get her attention by stealing her belongings.
When Mara returns home, she traps Sophie in the basement to confront her and then lights it on fire, however, both escape and rekindle.
Umbrella’s extensive collection also includes other renowned films such as Breaker Morant, The Reef, Undead, Mad Dog Morgan, Cosi and Love and Other Catastrophes.