Adelaide goes to Cannes: Five films picked for prestigious festival
Roll out the red carpet: A selection of Adelaide Film Festival picks will represent the best of Australia’s indie screen industry at a prestigious French festival next month.
Adelaide Film Festival has announced five films to be showcased at the Cannes Film Market (Cannes’ Marché du Film) – the business arm of the major international film festival in May.
The lineup reflects the melting pot of international influence in SA’s screen industry, Adelaide Film Festival CEO Mat Kesting says.
“This year’s lineup spans continents and themes – from geopolitical conflict and exploitation in Polina and Death of a Shaman, to intimate explorations of relationships and grief in Wilderness, River and Tiber,” Mat says.
“Each project is marked by ambition, craft and a distinct cinematic voice.”
The partnership – called Adelaide Goes to Cannes – has been running for three years, and showcases independent Australian feature films or documentaries that are near completion or works in progress.
Directors and producers from the films will make the trip to the prestigious film event for the showcase and participate in workshops alongside filmmakers from six other international festivals, including Brazil, Japan and Estonia.
These are the five picks.
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Death of a Shaman
Death of a Shaman, directed and produced by Dan Jackson, follows a shaman’s family at the centre of an Indigenous resistance movement against oil extraction backed by the International Monetary Fund. The uprising’s goal is to oust the Ecuadorian President. The film was shot in four languages, English, Spanish, Kichwa and Shuar.
Jackson’s feature debut In the Shadow of the Hill won best documentary at the Sydney Film Festival, a Director’s Guild award for best direction in a feature documentary and two Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards.
Polina
Directed by Agnes Burrell, Polina follows a 10-year-old Ukrainian girl named Polina, whose village near Kyiv is destroyed in 2022. War becomes the backdrop of her adolescence as her family is forced to live beside the remains of their home.
The documentary follows the family and the titular young girl who dreams of becoming a veterinarian and tends to dogs, and other wounded creatures, caring for them as an act of resistance in the war-torn landscape.
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Polina is produced by Michael Wrenn, who has more than 30 years of experience in film across the UK, France and Australasia and credits including Irish-Australian feature Chasing Millions and the music festival coming-of-age 6 Festivals.
River
River, directed by Zane Borg, follows the 16-year-old titular character who’s teen years are reshaped by grief after the death of her mother. She befriends Marcus, a troubled teen, and together they steal a car and drive to South Australia in search of Marcus’ estranged mother.
Borg’s debut feature The Library Boys premiered at the Austin Film Festival in 2022, winning the Comedy Vanguard Award and earning Borg a spot on MovieMaker’s Screenwriters to Watch list.
Tiber
Tiber, directed by Dominic Allen, follows art historian Marco who returns to Tuscany after losing his job in Rome. His young daughter Lucia joins him to travel toward the River Tiber in central Italy. They travel through an Italian summer shaped by art, history and memory, and Marco reckons with a loss he’s tried to avoid.
Allen’s short film Two Men won the MIFF Emerging Australian Filmmaker Award and the IF Award for Rising Talent. His immersive exhibition Carriberrie premiered at Cannes Next in 2018 and later had its Australian premiere at AFF 2018 before becoming a major exhibition at Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive.
Wilderness
Wilderness, directed by Martin McKenna, follows Allie, who makes poor choices that lead to her leaving a life as a doctor, a mother, and a wife. She ventures into the Victorian high country with an old school friend Kaz in a trip that spirals into near disaster which teaches Allie to listen and forces her to confront her life.
The film is produced by Mat Govoni, who also produced the Cairnes Brother’s Late Night With The Devil and was an Associate Producer on the TAP/Matchbox series The Survivors for Netflix.
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