Screening In Competition is John Hillcoat’s Lawless. The film is set during Prohibition and tells the true story of three bootleggers, the Bondurant brothers and their attempts to maintain their growing empire, as the authorities seek a take of their earnings. Starring Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska, our very own Chris Kennedy was Production Designer and Margot Wilson designed Costumes. They have previously worked with John Hillcoat, including on The Proposition and The Road. Lawless will screen on Saturday 19 May and we’re keen to hear what everyone thinks of it. In the meantime, you can watch the trailer here.

While it won’t be screening In Competition, it’s great news to see The Sapphires making its world premiere at Cannes. From Goalpost Pictures and director Wayne Blair, the film follows four girls from a remote Aboriginal mission, taken by a talent scout and given their first gig – as entertainment for the troops in Vietnam. The film stars Chris O’Dowd, Deborah Mailman and Jessica Mauboy and we’re particularly pleased because it’s edited by Dany Cooper. This film will also screen on Saturday 19 May. There’s a clip out from the film, which you can view here.

To quote from the Literacy and Numeracy website, Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley is ‘a delightfully written and illustrated book about best friends who are different in many ways. This inspiring story will appeal across all ages and as a springboard to other activities. The themes can take your students in many directions.

Pearl and Charlie was Aaron’s first book and it won the CBCA Book of the Year: Early Childhood. Aaron has since published three more books, with his fifth, The Dreadful Fluff, due for release later this year.

Lore from director Cate Shortland and Porchlight Films will have its world premiere at the festival. Based on Rachel Seiffert’s novella, the film is set in post WWII Germany and follows the journey of five siblings whose parents were Nazi SS soldiers, as they the country to their grandmother. Adam Arkapaw was the Director of Photography  and Veronika Jenet edited the film. This looks to be one of the must-see films for the festival, screening in their ‘Official Competition’ Program.

Here’s a link to read more about Lore and to purchase tickets.

MABO

Cameron’s is thrilled about this news, especially with our clients involved in many areas across the telemovie. Sue Smith was scriptwriter, Felicity Abbott was production designer (and is back with Blackfella for their TV series Redfern Now – currently shooting) and Margot Wilson designed the costumes (another credit being John Hillcoat’s Lawless soon to screen at Cannes). Margot also designed costumes on the Leah Purcell short film She. Say and it is also screening at SFF in the Short Film Program.

Here’s a link to MABO’s page on the SFF website where you can now buy tickets. If you won’t be able to make any of the sessions at the Festival, ABC will be screening the telemovie in June and in the meantime, you can check out the trailer here.

Matilda Brown’s latest short, Am I OK has an Opening Night screening on Tuesday 22nd and will also be screening on Saturday 26th. Her film is about a young woman facing an existential crisis who consults her psychiatrist.

Maia Horniak has written and directed Love Untitled, which will also screen on Saturday 26th. In its world premiere, the film explores love in unspoken dreams as the sun sets on an argument between a couple.

Here’s a link for further information on the festival and to buy tickets.

The other shortlisted authors are Gillian Mears, for Foal’s Bread; Favel Parrett, for Past the Shallows; Tony Birch, for Blood, and Anna Funder for All That I Am.

Judges’ notes on the shortlisted titles can be found here.

For more information on Cold Light, visit the Random House website.

The black romantic comedy is about a woman who is dragged back to her chequered sexual past to protect her exes and preserve her chance at true love.

Find out more about Laid

Find out more about Marieke Hardy

Find out more about Abe Forsythe

The film is based on Eric Lomax’s autobiography as a soldier in World War II captured and tortured by the Japanese in Thailand. Haunted by these experiences in his later life, he uncovers the whereabouts of one of his torturers and returns to Thailand to confront him. The film stars Colin Firth as Lomax in his later years and Jeremy Irvine when he was still a soldier, Nicole Kidman plays his wife and Stellan Skarsgård is a solider friend who helps Lomax in tracking down his torturer, played by Hiroyuki Sanada.

The body of a seventeen-year-old girl has been found covered in wildflowers on a hillside in the Drakensberg Mountains, near Durban. She is the daughter of a Zulu chief, destined to fetch a high bride price. Was Amahle as innocent as her family claims, or is her murder a sign that she lived a secret life?

In this page-turning tale of murder and mystery, Nunn entangles us in a rich and complex web of witchcraft, tribalism, taboo relationships… and plain old-fashioned greed.

Silent Valley by Malla Nunn, Pan Macmillan Australia, RRP $24.99.

Also out this month is The Italian Girl by Rebecca Huntley. 

In 2001 Rebecca Huntley’s maternal grandmother – her Italian nonna– died. This sparked a decade-long search for the ‘truth’ about her grandmother’s life, and the lives of the men and women in her family from Innisfail, Northern Queensland, during the hard times of World War II.

The nonna Rebecca knew was a kind-hearted and quiet individual. Short and slight, she was a wonderful cook who embroidered every day of her life. Rebecca loved her dearly but saw her as a conservative, pliant and generally uninteresting Italian woman. After her death, however, incredible stories of her nonna as a young woman surfaced and Rebecca realised that she didn’t know her at all.

Learning more about nonna stirred up old ghosts in Rebecca’s relationship with her mother and challenged Rebecca’s own sense of self as she, pregnant with her first child, had to wonder what it really means to be a mother. With evocative stories and tender honesty, Rebecca takes us on this significant search.

The Italian Girl by Rebecca Huntley, University of Queensland Press, RRP $29.95.

Cameron’s would especially like to congratulate all of our clients involved in this great production: Melissa George (who recently received the Silver Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actress), writers Emily Ballou and Alice Bell and director Jessica Hobbs.

The awards will take place on Sunday May 27.