Australia’s internationally-recognised Flickerfest celebrates 25 years of hot shorts and bite-sized cinema.
This year’s instalment of the annual Flickerfest features 20 creative shots handpicked from 2,400 entries which premiered at the Bondi Beach Pavilion on 8 January and will rock on until the 17th before embarking on a national tour. A win in one of the Flickerfest categories qualifies a film for BAFTA or Oscar consideration, so competition will be fierce.
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The festival will showcase some of Australia's most acclaimed home-grown short films, such as 'Ernie Biscuit', the blackly comic claymation of a deaf Parisian taxidermist, from acclaimed auteur Director Adam Elliot. Also playing is 'The Trophy Thief', the multi-festival selected story of a young soccer player's attempts to mend the rifts in his family. Puppetry fans can catch tongue-in-cheek dummy-noir 'The Detectives Of Noir Town'.
Balcony Also showing are: the AACTA-nominated 'Flat Daddy', which concerns a military family's attempts to replace its absent patriarch with a cardboard cut-out; ‘Nan And A Whole Lot Of Trouble’, which spotlights an Irish-Aboriginal grandmother’s controversial habit of keeping photographs of departed relatives; and the lurid ‘Imagination Game’ about a man who plays an imagination game with his grandson and discovers a shocking secret.
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For the globally-minded audiences, shorts from all corners of the globe will be screened. The festival will present the world premiere of 'Balcony', an account of racial tension and young lust in a London estate starring Broadchurch's Charlotte Beaumont. Also from across the pond comes ‘Stutterer’, the Oscar-shortlisted account of a brilliant young man’s struggle with his debilitating condition. Based on true events, the multi-award-winning 'Shok' follows the struggles of two young boys during the height of the Kosovan war. Avant-garde Canadian animation 'Autos Portraits' ('Carface') features automobiles twisting and dancing in all manner of weird and wonderful ways, to a discordantly calming soundtrack. Chilling Austrian effort 'Nelly' – winner of Best Short Film at the KINOdiseea festival – concerns a lonely girl, driving through nowhere with a terrible secret. While 'Still Breathing' from Spain chronicles an old man’s final trial.
Nan And A Whole Lot Of TroubleIn Best Of International part 2, Oscar-nominated Canadian animator Cordell Barker presents his first stop-motion film, 'If I Was God'; the tale of a bored child's extraordinary imagination. From Switzerland comes 'Subotika', an offbeat advertisement for a weird and wonderful holiday destination. ‘Out Of The Village’ follows the struggles of two young West African children, asking the question: 'if it takes a village to raise a child, what happens when the village is gone?' ‘La Repas Dominical’ ('Sunday Lunch') is a bizarre and frighteningly animated glimpse into a very French Sunday lunch.
Flickerfest will screen at the Bondi Pavillion until 17 January before embarking on a national tour January-May.
