The 2019 Sydney Film Festival will pay homage to the women directors who helped launch, sustain, and further Australian cinema. Now in its 66th year, the fest has announced that it’ll screen 10 female-directed films that mark “a milestone in Australian cinema,” The Sydney Morning Herald reports. The tribute marks the first time in the fest’s history that its retrospective component will exclusively recognize women.
“Rather than highlighting one director, we’re celebrating the vital work of ten remarkable women. This retrospective pays tribute to not only these pioneering filmmakers, who tirelessly forged their own path forward, but to all the talented women who have crafted important and enduring films in this country,” said critic David Stratton, who curated the program.
Titled Essential Women Directors, the slate will kick off with Paulette McDonagh’s “The Cheaters,” a 1930 silent film about an embezzler who works with his daughter.
Among the other titles set to screen is Gillian Armstrong’s “High Tide,” a 1987 Judy Davis-starrer about a backup singer who befriends a teenager that turns out to be the daughter she abandoned decades prior. “When I started working on my first feature film in 1978, there would have been a handful of women in the world that were working as directors,” Armstrong said. “There was this incredible burden — I was being judged as a representative of all female filmmakers, so thank god it did work.” When she first applied at ABC, she was re-directed to the “typing department.”
Shirley Barrett’s “Love Serenade” is also part of the program. Released in 1996, the comedy follows sisters who are looking for love. Barrett emphasized that the female filmmakers before her ensured that she would “always have a voice.”
“In some ways, it still is a bit of an old-fashioned industry,” Barrett acknowledged, “but I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked on TV shows that have always been encouraged to have a female director. I felt privileged, knowing I had strong women before me that had made very successful films,” she explained, while admitting that the lack of opportunities for women in the industry remains “disheartening.”
It was just announced that Aussie filmmaker Jennifer Kent’s latest, “The Nightingale,” will hit U.S. theaters August 2. Set in 1825 Tasmania, the drama follows an Irish convict (Aisling Franciosi, “The Fall”) determined to find and exact vengeance on the British army officer (Sam Claflin, “Me Before You”) who wronged her family. While pursuing her target, she enlists the help of an Aboriginal tracker (Baykali Ganambarr).
The Sydney Film Festival will take place from June 5-16, and Essential Women Directors will screen from June 5-10. “The program will also screen in Canberra at the National Film and Sound Archive’s Arc Cinema following the Sydney Film Festival,” the source notes. For more information about the fest check out its website.
