Australian Film Festival 2008

[Umutt65]

2 – 6 April, Moscow - Khudozhestvenny cinema, 14 Arbatskaya Sq
9 – 13 April, St. Petersburg - Dom Kino, 12 Karavannaya St
The Australian Film Festival is organised by the Australian Embassy in Moscow, with the assistance of the Australian Film Commission. This major effort to raise awareness and appreciation of Australian film and culture is now launching its 6th year, and is proving to be increasingly popular with Russian audiences. Last year, in 2007, we were able for the first time to organise the Festival in both Moscow and St. Petersburg - at Khudozhestvenny Cinema in the very centre of Moscow, and Dom Kino in the centre of St. Petersburg. It was such a success that we are replicating and building upon it in 2008.

This year’s Festival program will include around 10 Australian feature films and a selection of shorts. The features introduce various aspects of modern Australian society, including family values and child raising, in this 2008 Year of Family Values in Russia.

The feature films for 2008 Festival include the following:


Thank God He Met Lizzie, Comedy/romance. Director: Cherie Nowlan. Cast: Cate Blanchett, Richard Roxburgh, Frances O'Connor

The Bank, Political thriller. Director: Robert Connolly. Cast: David Wenham, Anthony LaPaglia, Sibylla Budd

Chopper, Crime/biographical. Director: Andrew Dominik. Cast: Eric Bana, Simon Lyndon, Dan Wyllie, Vince Colosimo, Kate Beahan, David Field, Bill Young, Kenny Graham

The Dish, Comedy. Director: Rob Sitch. Cast: Sam Neill, Kevin Harrington, Tom Long, Patrick Warburton, Genevieve Mooy

Doing Time For Patsy Cline, Crime adventure/comedy. Director: Chris Kennedy. Cast: Richard Roxburgh, Miranda Otto, Matt Day

Innocence, Psychological/comedy/romance. Director: Paul Cox. Cast: Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Julia Blake, Terry Norris, Robert Menzies, Chris Haywood, Marta Dusseldorp

Japanese Story, Relationship drama. Director: Sue Brooks. Cast: Toni Collette, Gotaro Tsunashima, Lynette Curran, Matthew Dyktynski, John Howard, Yukiko Tanaka, Kate Atkinson, Bill Young

Jindabyne, Drama. Director: Ray Lawrence. Cast: Laura Linney, Gabriel Byrne, Deborra-Lee Furness, John Howard, Chris Haywood

Kiss Or Kill, Romantic thriller. Director: Bill Bennett. Cast: Frances O'Connor, Matt Day

Look Both Ways, Drama/thriller. Director: Sarah Watt. Cast: William McInnes, Justine Clarke, Anthony Hayes, Lisa Flanagan, Andrew S. Gilbert, Daniela Farinacci, Sacha Horler, Maggie Dence, Edwin Hodgeman, Andreas Sobik

The Film Festival will bring into focus the problems of modern Australian society, and provide an insight into life in Australia, through which the audience will be able to draw threads of similarity with life in modern Russia. Although Russia and Australia are geographically very far away from each other, we are still hold the same hopes and fears. The frame of reference may be different, but love, greed, hope, fear, romance, poverty – these are universal themes. We hope that Russian audiences will appreciate the creations of Australian filmmakers.


Tickets are available at Khudozhestvenny cinema in Moscow (tel. bookings: +7-495-291-02-47) and at Dom Kino in St. Petersburg (+7-812-314-56-14).

[pjw]

This post caught my attention. Sounds very interesting. I´d definitely check it out if I was in Moscow or SPB during these dates. It´d also be a good chance to perhaps meet some people too, I mean there may be something happening in addition to the films, I´m sure, as it´s a film festival.

May I ask if you have something to do with this film festival Umutt65 or did you just post it out of your own general interest? Very interesting what they say about the similarities between Russia and Australia.

I really would have loved to have checked out some of this event week. So have lots of fun! Enjoy it and please let us know what it was like. Can you please give us a little report? Perhaps we could discuss some of the themes?

[elis]

This may be a dumb question, but will the films be dubbed in Russian?

Sounds very interesting.

[pjw]

Originally Posted by elis This may be a dumb question, but will the films be dubbed in Russian? Sounds very interesting.

I would most certainly hope not! Don´t dub it. Don´t touch it. It´s a work of art. F##cking hands off thanks!
In Germany it´s all dubbed, but - for me as a non-German - it helps learning language. How I learnt German! But completely changes a film. Entirely. It may help people understanding the films, depending on one´s level of the language.
Oh come on who are we trying to fool? There are enough good speakers of English in Russia - look at forum - so they should leave the films in the original lingo, otherwise it loses alot of cultural authenticity. Plus the ozzy accent is something pretty special and unique, like all accents. Take a few filums to get used to it if you haven´t heard it before!

[Rustralian]

Originally Posted by elis This may be a dumb question, but will the films be dubbed in Russian? Sounds very interesting.

I very seriously doubt that they will be dubbed - they are only smaller films and I suspect that there was not much demand for them to be dubbed in Russian for their audience and it is not likely the Embassy has bothered to dub them ...

[pjw]

Hi Rustralian, You´ve put my worried little heart at ease. You´re right, who´s going to dub them? Oh I can breathe out now and relax. Sounds like a decent festival. Going to be going along? PS Do you know what´s going on in Oz tomorrow?

[Rustralian]

Is tomorrow the great Apology? ... which will then be followed for more demands for compensation and more civil court actions seeking to get compensation .... yadda yadda yadda...

..we should just give them a few more billion dollars, after all, if 1% of the Australian population already cost the Australian country and working taxpayers a couple of billion dollars per year in welfare, grants and support, what is a few billion more ... it is good for the economy as it mostly gets spent in the local pub, so I see no problem with that ...

... yes I am a cynical SOB on that subject, having been born in country WA in one of the most notorious towns/cities in the country for problems with them and watched them rape, rob and murder (all sorts of people) for years with impunity ... one gets a little tired of calls for more compensation so that they can get more free legal aid for their crime gangs or more free $80,000 4WD's that they can abandon in the bush when it runs out of fuel and they don't feel like driving it any more, as they can always get a new one ....

... the Tasmanian solution was always the best, but they missed one!

I would offer my thoughts more clearly, but ...

[pjw]

Rustralian, Offer your thoughts more clearly and when I come to Moscow in summer we can have a pint together!

I´m a city boy from Sydney, and got a different perspective to you. I haven´t seen the reality of what goes on out bush. Maybe I´ve been protected and maybe therefore am naive and blind to some things, like the gangs and the waste you´ve seen in the sticks. I´ve also been away from Oz for 14 years. I can see where you´re views come from.

However I see tomorrow as a day I will be very sad, but also feel a little bit proud of some bugger speaking on behalf of the government, saying "There was a crime. We did it. We acknowledge your pain. Sorry about that." A start of some kind of healing process, bush boy?

PS. The is a kangaroo

[Rustralian]

It is always interesting how the healing process always seems to come to $$$$$ - they have already had spokemen coming out and saying .. sorry is not enough and they should be given some of the planned tax benefits to the exclusion of the rest of the Australian population that works and pays tax ... gee, if you don't pay tax and receive a billion or so per year in welfare, why should you receive the benefit from tax cuts and not the people that pay the tax ...

... of course, many years ago your grandfather was fostered out to white family under a legal policy of integration (however misguided) and therefore you should receive some more money (over and above your regular welfare and benefits) because if he was still alive he would be sad and he is only dead because he had no land rights, even though his parents were originally from a nomadic tribe that had no actual connection to any land, not even the most basic form of farming or cultivation, nor even animal herding, but due to his being severed from the land he was never attached to, he died of a broken heart, and not realy scirosis of the liver from drinking away his welfare cheque every week at the pub, which was your fault too because you didn't make him stop drinking and take food vouchers, even though if you had tried to make him take food vouchers and not money he could spend at the pub he would have accused you of being racist and stopped you doing it anyway and made you give him the cash to buy grog...

.... my sympathy abounds ....

I am waiting for my apology for having to be part of a community that gets to watch billions of dollars per year spent on a semi neanderthal species representing less than 1% of the population to see it wasted and abused and to have them show no respect for any aspect of the country or the people that inhabit it and who conquered their species a long time ago...

[Rustralian]

Quokka soccer

[pjw]

Species, the conquering of species. It´s a word used to refer to animals. This is how you see the situation? It is the way you see 1788 and onwards. Or 2008 and back. The conquering of a species. You also refered to The White Line in Tassie as not being successful. One got away you said. That´s too cynical. Not funny.

It´s not about land rights or money. It´s about child abuse. An unacceptable embarrassing terror. A crime. Planned, premeditated, organised by the government. Carried out happily by cynical uncaring people like you. A crime to wipe out a race of people by making them slaves and putting them in boarding schools. Splitting families to kill culture.

Do you wanna defend child abuse? Child abuse f*#ks up generations. You got kids I think. Think about it man. Get the reality of someone kidnapping your kids. And the law says Shut it or you a dead man! You don´t get it. Which race deserves to be exterminated next?

It´s racism. It´s genocide. It makes the nazis look like sunday school teachers in comparison.

[pjw]

Come on Rustralian. Have one more dig at me - I had 2 at you - then we´ll give this thread back to the film enthusiasts. But I can´t believe you are a racist.

[Umutt65]

Originally Posted by pjw This post caught my attention. Sounds very interesting. I´d definitely check it out if I was in Moscow or SPB during these dates. It´d also be a good chance to perhaps meet some people too, I mean there may be something happening in addition to the films, I´m sure, as it´s a film festival. May I ask if you have something to do with this film festival Umutt65 or did you just post it out of your own general interest? Very interesting what they say about the similarities between Russia and Australia. I really would have loved to have checked out some of this event week. So have lots of fun! Enjoy it and please let us know what it was like. Can you please give us a little report? Perhaps we could discuss some of the themes?

It will be a great event, believe me. I posted it because I wanted to let the people know what are the Australian films about. The russians will have the earpluggs of course. Australia in general and Australian art (films, painting exhibitions and etc) became very popular in these last few years. I believe the interest will grow up. The Australian film festival is the confirmation for this. Wanna discuss it.. PM me

[pjw]

On behalf of Rustralian and myself, we apologise for hijacking your thread Umutt65. We were getting a bit heated about something we completely disagree about.
May I ask where you started to get on this road of liking Oz art and Oz film etc? Good on ya! I´m interested in Uzbekistan, which as I see from your profile is where you´re from.

[Umutt65]

Originally Posted by pjw On behalf of Rustralian and myself, we apologise for hijacking your thread Umutt65. We were getting a bit heated about something we completely disagree about. May I ask where you started to get on this road of liking Oz art and Oz film etc? Good on ya! I´m interested in Uzbekistan, which as I see from your profile is where you´re from.

I like Australian art, people, films. I find it is awesome! I will be there on the opening of the film festival.

I love Uzbekistan. Have you ever been there?