BigPond Adelaide Film Festival Launches Highlights
On Wednesday 3 December the Adelaide Film Festival announced their new naming rights sponsor, BigPond, and eleven new Australian films to premiere at the 2009 festival.
Australia’s biennial and youngest Film Festival is delighted to announce Australia’s largest internet service provider, BigPond, as the naming rights sponsor of the 2009 Adelaide Film Festival. Festival Chairperson, Cheryl Bart says, ‘We are delighted to announce BigPond as the naming rights supporter for the 2009 Adelaide Film Festival. As Australia's leading provider of access to the small screen - including online, and mobile phone - BigPond is the logical partner for our festival which celebrates the moving image not only in cinemas but across the myriad screens in our lives.’
Named in Variety's 2007 list of the World's Top 50 Film Festivals and winner of that year's IF Award for Best Film Festival, the 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival returns from February 19 to March 1, for a two-week celebration of the moving image in all its manifestations. The 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival will screen more than 130 films from over 50 countries and present a range of special events, exhibitions and forums in addition to its In Cinema screening program.
The 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival will not only showcase the best of international screen culture but invest in new and innovative Australian works through its investment arm, the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund (Look Both Ways, Ten Canoes, Home Song Stories). The 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival will world premiere an amazing 11 new Australian works from established and emerging filmmakers. Highlights will include My Year Without Sex (Dir Sarah Watt),a wry look at twelve months in a family's life as chance and fate randomly intervene; My Tehran For Sale (Dir Granaz Moussavi) , the story of a young actress living in Tehran and her struggle for freedom, shot entirely in Iran; Home (Dir Kriv Stenders),a Western set in 1902 as seen through the eyes of a 12 year old boy; Last Ride (Dir Glendyn Ivin),the story of a desperate father, played by Hugo Weaving who takes his son on the run after committing a violent crime; Samson & Delilah (Dir Warwick Thornton), a love story about two young aboriginal teenagers who live in a remote indigenous community; A Good Man (Dir Safina Uberoi), the extraordinary true story of an Australian farmer Chris Rorhlach, his quadriplegic wife, their newborn baby and his plans to open a brothel in their small country town; and The Cat Piano (Dirs Eddie White and Ari Gibson) another inspired animation from The People's Republic of Animation featuring the voice of Nick Cave as the narrator.
The 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival is excited to announce a bold new programming direction with the presentation of a new commissioned work - and first major survey of selected works - by acclaimed Australian artist Lynette Wallworth, to take place at the University of South Australia's Samstag Museum of Art, Australia's newest public art museum. As the moving image in visual art becomes more and more potent, and continues to influence and be influenced by ‘film', increasingly these art forms are blurred as practitioners move between the two. The inclusion of a visual artist in the Adelaide Film Festival's Investment Fund slate recognises this new development and the excellence of this artist's work. Creativity is the buzzword for this unique Film Festival which will bring together filmmakers and cinephiles to celebrate and explore the moving image in all its manifestations.
The full program will be announced January 23 2009, for more information visit www.adelaidefilmfestival.org