Celebrating what would have been the 100th birthday of maverick Greenwich Village filmmaker Shirley Clarke (pictured above), Antenna is proud to present not only a retrospective of some of her most compelling feature films and experimental shorts at the Museum of Contemporary Art, but to also have a record number of films by women filmmakers in this year’s program. Multi-award winning festival guests Mijie Li (China) and Rachel Leah Jones (Israel) will both be in Sydney this month to present their new films Confucian Dream and Advocate respectively, alongside others. We also have Australian directors Glenda Hambly (Homeland Story), Amanda King (The Great Strike 1917), Samantha Dinning (No Time For Quiet), Fiona Cochrane (Ska’d For Life) screening films screening at Antenna. We’re happy to say, films by, for and about remarkable women are an integral part of Antenna’s 2019 program.
THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL
★ Winner Most Innovative Feature – Visions du Réel
A nuanced exploration about consent and sexual assault from Brussels-based director Alexe Poukine, That Which Does Not Kill is an inventive, clever and brave film that provides a uniquely deep insight into the many layers of this delicate and under-explored topic. In the film, a number of people retell a disturbing, but common real-life story, reflecting how it relates to their own experiences.
ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA
Influential director Shirley Clarke captures free-jazz architect Ornette Coleman’s fascinating evolution over three decades, in this stand-out feature documentary from her cannon. Pictured together above, Clarke made many groundbreaking films in her career. Also showing in Antenna’s 100th Anniversary Clarke Retrospective are the once-banned jazz-junkie feature The Connection and her incredible Portrait of Jason masterpiece.
NO TIME FOR QUIET + CHAMPION GIRLS
★ SELLING FAST ★
The response to this female double has been very strong. Hilary Balmond’s Champion Girls takes a look at the fascinating world of women’s dance phenomenon Physie, while feature film No Time For Quiet focusses on a local camp where mentors like Courtney Barnett empower a new generation of girl guitar-slingers and non-binary rockers.
RECORDER: THE MARION STOKES PROJECT
Marion Stokes was a fascinating woman, whose activism included recording American TV channels on multiple home video recorders, 24 hours a day over four decades. This strange, captivating and moving portrait of an intelligent, radical librarian and her seemingly crazy mission, also highlights her glorious archival gift to the world: the telling content of 70,000 VHS tapes.
THE GRAND BIZARRE
Acclaimed experimental animator and film collagist, Jodie Mack‘s latest work is a fast-paced, masterfully edited audio-visual adventure that necessitates big-screen appreciation. Alive with colour, gesture and sound, this charming feature explores the movement of textiles across the globe and within the larger web of major international commerce. With a wonderful mix of music, The Grand Bizarre is a sensory party that can’t be compared with anything you have ever imagined.
CHINESE PORTRAIT
A young mother in China discovers Confucianism and becomes a zealous convert, intent on planting a seed in her impressionable four-year-old child and resistant husband. Instead of the expected peace and harmony, her family may never recover from Ruism’s intrusion in their home. Chinese director Mijie Li brings her award winning film to Antenna for its Australian Premiere and will take part in a panel discussion with Lu shy and Dr. Olivier Kirscher after the screening.
YOUR TURN / ESPERO TUA [RE]VOLTA A ray of hope. A glimpse into what can be achieved when people are driven to action.Years before #ClimateStrike, Brazilian students protested and occupied hundreds of schools, demanding better public education and the end of austerity measures. In Eliza Capai’s electrifying new documentary, we experience youthful optimism at the frontline of activism and meet three radical students, who are all highly compelling narrators and give voice to the movement’s multiple perspectives. Raising the many issues young people are still concerned about, Your Turn asks: who writes history and how should it be recorded?“Exquisite… Energetic and young at heart”
D Movies
FOR SAMA
★★★★★ More 5-Star reviews than any other film in Antenna’s historyThe response to For Sama, both here and all around the world has been remarkable, including the L’Œil D’Or award for Best Documentary at Cannes and the Grand Jury prize for Best Documentary at SXSW. Waad al-Kateab – the Syrian mother at the centre of the film and its co-director – has made a moving, epic and intimate portrayal of the female experience the war. Filmed over five years of the uprising in Aleppo, as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to daughter Sama, Waad al-Kateab’s camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival, while she wrestles with an impossible decision: should she flee the the city in order to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much? With only two screenings for its Sydney Premiere at Antenna, we recommend purchasing tickets this week as both session look like selling out very soon.“There simply hasn’t been a film like it before.” – The Times
Director Rachel Leah Jones is another international guest visiting Antenna for a panel discussion at DocTalk as well as Q&As following screenings of her film Advocate, about a remarkable woman, Israeli lawyer Lea Tsemel. Tsemel has dedicated her five decade career to defending Palestinians. In Advocate we join her at work for a documentary that has all the momentum of a courtroom drama.
BEST DOCUMENTARY Docaviv BEST DOCUMENTARY Thessaloniki FF WINNERS’ CIRCLE DOC NYC
TRANSINSTRA
★ MUST SEE ★
A beautiful film from Swedish director Anna Eborn, Transinstra is set in a little known corner of the former Soviet Union and focuses on lead character, Tanya the charismatic alpha-female in an otherwise all-male group of teens. Together they’re searching for love, identity, freedom and a future. Atmospherically shot on 16mm, Transnistra is an intimate and vital account of friendship in a complex, contradictory world.
“Seminal… will ensure Eborn is a voice that cannot be ignored.” – Cineuorpa
DOCWEST
★ PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS IN PARRAMATTA ★
★ PLUS EXCLUSIVE EVENTS ★Antenna is excited to collaborate with long-term festival partner, Western Sydney University, to present DocWest, a showcase of some of the best documentaries from this year’s program screening at Parramatta’s Riverside Theatres. These include Antenna’s opening night film Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin: Werner Herzog’s tribute to his friend, the great British travel writer Bruce Chatwin.In addition to screenings, DocWest includes two exclusive events. Firstly, a masterclass with Italian filmmaker Agostino Ferrente after the Australian Premiere of his latest film, Selfie. Opening at Berlinale earlier this year, Selfie won the Best Documentary award in Luxemburg for its unique and humorous study of an affectionate friendship between two teenage Italian boys living in a tough neighbourhood.
Also exclusive to Parramatta is a timely discussion panel about the world’s growing housing crisis, following the Australian Premiere of Fredrik Gertten’s documentary Push. Gertten introduces us to Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, as she uncovers the forces making access to accommodation ever more difficult, and enabling real estate prices to soar. With a panel of local experts and political analysts unpacking the factors putting pressure on Sydney housing, don’t miss this topical and engaging post-Push discussion.
DocWest Program
Friday Oct 18
2.00 PM Selfie (Italy)
3.15 PM Masterclass w/ Agostino Ferrente
6.00 PM Push (Denmark)
7.30 PM Housing Panel w/ Fredrik Gertten
Saturday Oct 19
4:00 PM Bamboo Bridge (Australia) + Q&A w/ dir. Juan Francisco Salazar,
6:00 PM Los Reyes (Chile)
Sunday Oct 27
3:30 PM Jawline (US)
6:00 PM Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (UK)
Antenna would not be possible each year without the generous help of our volunteers. We are once again looking for enthusiastic people to join our team in the lead up to, and during the 11 days of the festival, which runs from October 17 – 27.
Interested? Simply send your name, contact details and a couple of lines about yourself to our Production Co-ordinator Sean: sean@antennafestival.org
