Hot on the heels of the successful miniseries adaptation of the very popular 2008 Christos Tsiolkas novel The Slap, Dead Europe is Tony Krawitz‘s feature film debut, and a stirring adaptation of one of Tsiolkas’ most divisive literary efforts. The attraction of The Slap will be sure to get some fans through cinema doors, though I’m not altogether sure they’ll be pleased with what they [...]

Hail is the first feature effort from Amiel Courtin-Wilson who has gained international recognition for his documentaries Chasing Buddha, Bastardy and his short film Cicada, which introduced us to the dark and enigmatic force that is Daniel P. Jones.

A devastating tsunami – filled with sharks – hits coastal Queensland just as an escalating armed-robbery is taking place at a beachfront supermarket. The water hits, drowning, maiming and trapping the surviving shoppers and staff in two separate fish tanks.

Director Cate Shortland won much appreciation for her superb first feature Somersault. Finally, her long-awaited follow-up, Lore, is a German-language Australian co-production, adapted by Shortland and Robin Mukhurjee from Rachel Seiffert’s British novel The Dark Room.

I’m always tentative when walking into the screening of an Australian film; for every Face to Face (2011) there’s a You and Your Stupid Mate (2005), which means that I’m always pleasantly surprised when the film is actually good, and when it’s really good, I tell everyone to go and see it.

Five years after his silent film experiment, Dr. Plonk, Australian maverick director Rolf De Heer returns to cinema screes with a tale of suburban gothic that alternates between the hysterical and the downright disturbing.

Wild nights of endless booze, drugs, sex and DJs surround the lives of housemates Jonah (Ryan Kwanten), Gus (Ryan Corr) and Stevie (Sarah Snook). As part of their inflow of income, the young and handsome threesome throw massive parties every weekend in their share house to continuing success.

The ABC has given us a wonderful gift in biopic MABO.  This is the story of Australian hero and Aboriginal icon Eddie Mabo portrayed with grace and strength by the beautifully talented Jim Bani. Not just a story about Native Title and the legal battle that he faced but also a heartwarming love story about Eddie and his devoted wife Bonita played [...]

On a very wet Sydney evening, 2000 industry types and movie lovers gathered at the State Theatre for the world premier of Peter Templeman’s Not Suitable For Children and to launch the 59th annual Sydney Film Festival. First time SFF director Nashen Moodley gave a delightfully brief introduction, stating he’d “much rather be watching films than talking about them” before [...]

In his first Australian film in almost twenty years, director John Duigan, who made the eighties teen masterpiece The Year My Voice Broke, and later its equally impressive sequel, Flirting (which I write about here), makes an interesting return with Careless Love, an extremely well-directed and brilliantly performed character study of a young prostitute set in Sydney.