Conor Bateman's Blog, page 19

Double Play + James Benning Retrospective – An Interview with Director/Programmer Gabe Klinger

Gabe Klinger isthe director ofDouble Play: James Benning and Richard Linklaterand also the curator of the James Benning retrospective at Sydney Film Festival. We sat down with him to talkDouble Play, time in film andBoyhood.

At the start ofDouble Playtheres’s a line James Benning says in voice-over that I found quite striking and that is that “all life is memory”. Especially in the context ofAmerican Dreams (lost and found) there’s this idea of mixing cultural and personal memory, which I thin...

Fell – An Interview with Kasimir Burgess, Director, and John Maynard, Producer/Distributor

Fell, the debut feature film from short film veteran Kasimir Burgess, has the potential to shake up the Australian film landscape. Not only is the film having its world premiere in competition at Sydney Film Festival, it is being distributed online through an on-demand service immediately after its premiere at the festival. We sat down with director Kasimir Burgess and producer/distributor John Maynard.

So you won the Crystal Bear in Berlin for your short Lily in 2011. Do you think that winnin...

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter

Distorted and out of focus, “this is a true story” and the rest of the accompanying opening title card from Fargo encompasses the screen, barely readable but instantly recognisable to aficionados of the Coen Brothers’ modern classic. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, the latest film from SXSW favourites the Zellner Brothers, plays with the idea of the truth in fiction in ways both playful and poignant. The plot of the film itself is an appropriation of an urban legend, which alleged that a Japanes...

Locke

This years Sydney Film Festival is chock-full of structural concepts that, in theory, make a film interesting. From Boyhood‘s 12-year shoot to Fish & Cat‘s one-take to The Disappearence of Eleanor Rigby‘s two-parter to Goal of the Dead‘s director change halfway through, this year cinema that breaks from the norm seems to be in vogue. Steven Knight’s Locke is set primarily in a car, following Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) as he drives across England to London, propelled by intense amounts of stress a...

Happy Christmas

Joe Swanberg is one of the most interesting filmmakers working in America today, not necessarily because he breaks form or is reinventing the cinematic wheel but rather because he embodies an enviable sense of creative freedom, his films ranging from Werewolf thrillers (Silver Bullets) to mumblecore successes (Hannah Takes the Stairs et al) to his latest phase of filmmaking, which sees him alternating ‘genre’ features with these mostly improvised character dramedies that seem to work to great...

The Rover

David Michôd’s second feature, after the superbAnimal Kingdom, was always going to have a lot to live up to. As Michôd said prior to the screening at Sydney Film Festival, “we roll into Cannes and I can feel everyone’s beady eyes on me”. There’s something admirable, then, in the way he completely rejects many of the elements that made his debut so startling. Gone is the nuanced dialogue, the clever characterisation and the carefully constructed plot – in its place is a growling thriller, read...