more films

Niceland - 24/4 (sun) 1615hrs
Starring two of UK’s current stars Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot, Gangs of New York) and Martin Compston (Sweet Sixteen by Ken Loach), Niceland is the tale of lovers Jed (Compston) and Chloe (Gudrun Bjarnadottir) whose relationship has suffered a serious setback. Though Chloe becomes suicidal, Jed is determined to remedy the situation and marry her. This sets him off on a quest to discover the meaning of life, a task that seems impossible until he meets Max (Gary Lewis), a junk collector who claims he knows the secret to existence – on television. From junkyards to factories, Jed is surrounded by crazed, unsure people but remains determined to see his quest through to the end. Niceland is both magical and poignant in the unusual world Fridriksson brings to light through a simple premise.

Primer 19/4 (tues) 9.15pm
Primer is an elliptical sci-fi thriller set in the industrial park and suburban fringes of a generic city. Abe Aaron (Shane Carruth) and his friends are mildly bored engineers who work for a big corporation by day and focus their energies on personal projects in the garage by night. Their present preoccupation is a device that reduces the apparent mass of any object placed within it and opens up possibilities for travelling through time. Harnessing the potential this opens up is their first challenge; tackling consequences quickly becomes the bigger issue. Another potential indie stalwart, Carruth taught himself everything from scriptwriting to filmmaking and working on a low budget to realise the project. Evocative, complex and clever, like Donnie Darko (2001) or Fear X (SIFF 2004), Primer will leave viewers puzzled and gripped long after the last credits roll.


Tarnation 17/4 (sun) 9/15pm
At the age of eleven, Jonathan Caouette borrowed a video camera and began documenting his life and Tarnation is the resulting chronicle of nearly two decades, told through video, super 8 and home movie footage, stills and answering machine messages of dysfunction experienced by Caouette and his mother. Strongly promoted by Gus Van Sant who saw a rough cut and instantly signed on as one of the executive producers, critics view Tarnation as a remarkable new direction and standard for autobiographical filmmaking. Using i-Movie editing software, Caouette pieces together the shards of his life: shock treatments, rape, his mother’s drug overdose, schizophrenia, depersonalisation syndrome and abuse with foster parents. Visually arresting in its use of the medium as a correlative for the psychological downward spiral, Tarnation is a disturbing, stunning and finally, heart-wrenching, multi-award winning film.

Whisky 20/4 (wed) 9.15pm
Winner of the prestigious Sundance-NHK International Filmmakers Award, and the Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2004, Whisky is the second feature film from the promising young Uruguayan directing team Rebella and Stoll (25 Watts, 2001). It tells the tale of morose and humble Jacobo (Andrés Pazos) who has managed a stocking and sock factory for the better part of his life, with loyal assistant Marta (Mirella Pascual). They work quietly and efficiently side by side until one day, Jacobo’s estranged brother who has been living abroad for years, decides to pay a visit. Surprisingly, Jacobo asks Marta to pose as his wife and when fun-loving Herman suggests a seaside trip for the trio, the usually quiet pair end up revealing more of themselves than expected. The film won numerous awards including the FIPRESCI Prize and Un Certain Regard at Cannes, 2004. Actress Pascual also won awards at the Lima Latin American and Thessaloniki film festivals.

Steamboy 14/4 (thurs) 9.15pm
Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) re-imagines Victorian England for his newest anime effort, which was a decade in the making and co-written with Sadayuki Murai (writer of Millennium Actress). Young Ray Steam comes from a family and tradition of inventors and his grandfather and father’s most potent invention is the steamball, which can harness an incredible amount of power within itself. Ray finds himself accosted, attacked and pursued by thieving, conniving men in the United Kingdom as well as the United States. With help from his grandfather and the bratty rich girl, debutante-to-be Scarlett, Ray has to save London from these enemies, robots and a bizarre product of industrialisation called ‘Steam Tower’. Visually arresting in its depiction of 19th century Europe, Katsuhiro Otomo’s painstaking work over the past decade clearly shows in the minute attention to detail. But as the animation director’s previous works have demonstrated, his love of cyberpunk transforms itself here into what he calls “steampunk” (a whole genre of sci-fi writing). This gives a hardness and edge to the worlds he creates and not least, this is reflected in the atmosphere of Steamboy. It aptly captures the progress from industrialisation to the age of nuclear weapons, which is as much a critique of modernity as it is a foreboding portend of things to come in the 21st century. As such, Steamboy is both a stunning adventure epic and an astute commentary