Held from October 14 to October 25, we don’t have all that long to wait for this year’s Adelaide Film Festival. And that’s a relief because the first five films announced for the 2020 festival all sound unmissable.
We’ve got the plot details you need to know below, for a set of films that festival CEO and creative director Mat Kesting has called “inventive, absorbing, brilliant” and “provocative.”
Kesting continued on to celebrate that for Adelaidians, it’s “so very lucky it is safe to enjoy seeing films in cinemas here in South Australia and it is thrilling to announce that we are going ahead with a physical Festival in 2020.” All that remains is for locals or visitors to buy a festival pass to check out as many of the exciting releases as they can, which you can do at the links below.
Another Round
Mads Mikkelsen has one of the most interesting mugs in Hollywood, and may be best known as a Scandinavian Bond villain or the tortured protagonist of Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt. In this, another collaboration with Vinterberg, Mikkelsen goes way ‘Under The Volcano‘ to play a hapless alcholic, “dealing with the world through the bottom of a glass.” It’s been called a “sobering comedy,” which gives you an idea of the twisted wit to expect in the film.
Phil Ligett: The Voice of Cycling
Once an amateur racer, Phil Ligett is now most revered as a legendary cycling commentator, covering a staggering forty-seven Tours de France and fifteen Olympic Games. Nickolas Bird and Eleanor Sharpe’s feature documentary chronicles the biography of a cycling legend, with the sport clearly an ongoing passion for the documentarians. Their last film MAMIL (Middle Aged Men In Lycra) picked up the AFF Audience prize in 2018.
Firestarter – The Story of Bangarra
Stephen, Russell and David Page have spent their entire creative careers telling the story of Indigeneity and healing through dance. More specifically, through the Bangarra Dance Theatre they founded more than 30 years ago. Bangarra does, after all, mean “making fire.” This inspirational documentary from Wayne Blair and Nel Minchin follows the Page brothers’ journey from a spark to the now-blazing institution of uplifting and celebrating Indigenous performance.
High Ground
Certainly one of the most talked-about Aussie films of the year, High Ground stars newcomer Jacob Junior Nayinggul as an Indigenous man uneasily helping a white bounty hunter (Simon Baker) track down his own uncle’s dangerous mob. This period action film was a critical darling at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, shot in gorgeous, rugged environmental sets in Northern Territory and Victorian locations.
The Painter and the Thief
When a drug-addicted burglar stole some of Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova’s paintings, Kysilkova did something highly unusual: she asked the thief to sit for her as a subject for a new portrait, and an unlikely understanding between the two grew from there. That’s the basic premise of this celebrated documentary, which won the world cinema documentary prize at Sundance this year. Directed by Benjamin Rees, the film is an unflinching and surprisingly moving story of creativity, grace and humanity.
To buy single tickets or multi-film passes to Adelaide Film Festival, visit the official AFF website.
