Mary and Max - Friday 21st August 7.30pm

Mary and Max both have feet of clay and are in need of a friend. Max is a lonely, overweight New Yorker whose only positive relationship is his new penpal Mary Daisy Dinkle, an eight-year-old with a sad home life. The film follows twenty years of this melancholy long-distance friendship.

Mary and Max is the feature length debut for Adam Elliot, who won an Oscar for his claymation short Harvey Krumpet. Elliot's handcrafted talent and cinematic voice is utterly unique in world cinema, demonstrated when this film opened the Sundance Film Festival to a rapturous reception.

Critics have fallen in love with his obsessive detail and quirky observational humour. Could Elliot be the Gen X Leunig?

An eclectic cast of voices include Toni Colette, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Humphries and Eric Bana.

"The film is sublime," Margaret Pomeratz said. "It's funny and insightful... it was five years in the making and worth every minute."

"You really care about these characters, even though you know they're made of plasticine," said David Stratton.

 

Mary and Max screens this Friday 21st August at 7.30pm at Port Fairy Cinema in Bank Street. Memberships available at the door with free tea and coffee provided.

Short filmmaking taster courses

Got a yearning to make your own films? The Port Fairy Film Society is supporting local storytelling through film by running two low-cost filmmaking workshops in September. A four-hour course run over two weeks will commence at the Port Fairy Community House in Railway Place on 1st & 8th September. The course covers basics of putting together a home movie (scripted or created out of photos and home footage) including scriptwriting & planning, shooting and editing on readily available Movie Maker software. This course is at the beginner or the 'dabbler'. For more info contact Colin at the Community House on 5568 3187. Cost $30.

Another opportunity is being run as part of the Ex-Libris Book Fair on Saturday 5th September, a three hour 'race around the town' to create a 30 second cinema advertisement to be screened as a promotion for next year's Ex-Libris. Participants will help make the short ad with filmmaker Colleen Hughson and Film Society President Damien Becker, learning the basics of making a short video 'on-the-job'. A whirlwind learning experience. Cost $20. To book, contact Damien on 55681358. 

Friday 14th August -Special Screening -St.Kilda Short Film Festival in Port Fairy

Following on from the success of the 2008 National Tour, the St Kilda Film Festival National Tour is about to embark on its biggest tour yet visiting over 30 destinations Australian wide, covering every state and territory.
The sessions screened on the tour consist of a selection of some of the best films from the Top 100 program - award winners and audience favourites.
The ‘Best of the Fest’ sessions offer a variety of genres and includes filmmakers from each region, showcasing the very best of Australia’s emerging and established filmmaking talent.
Come and enjoy 12 diverse and amazing short films to be screened in two sessions commencing at 7.30pm.

The St Kilda Film Festival screens this Friday 14th August at 7.30pm at Port Fairy Cinema in Bank Street. Tickets $10.00. Overall film rating is 18+

I've Loved You So Long - Friday July 17th, 7.30pm

I've Loved You So Long is a slow burning, deeply psychological drama in the rich tradition of European - and particularly French - cinema. I never used to like these films when I was younger but I love them now, at a time when there seems to be fewer like them made.

Critical and popular acclaim for this film centres mainly around the performance of Kristin Scott-Thomas, one of those rare English-folk who speak perfect French and exude Gallic beauty and style. Scott-Thomas plays Juliette, a doctor and convicted murderer. When invited upon realease by her estranged sister Lea to live with her family, Juliette leaves much of the past unspoken despite her remaining, at least emotionally, imprisoned.

Director Philippe Claudel is a French novelist by primary vocation and he releases fragments of information slowly and carefully. The relationship of Juliette and her sister Lea is given time to develop, and the bridge that the younger sister so clearly wishes to build between them is constructed brick by brick, always threatening to topple if the trauma within finally breaks its levies.

"This is a film whose power lies in its restraint and the impact of its emotions compound as our hearts open wider and wider with each revelation," Louise Keller of Urban Cinefiles wrote.

"(It is) an exquisitely rendered story of reconciliation and redemption, which has something of a thriller's structure but is really all about relationships," Michael O'Sullivan of the Washington Post.

I've Loved You So Long screens this Friday 17th July at 7.30pm at Port Fairy Cinema in Bank Street. Memberships available at the door with free tea and coffee provided.

Click below to watch trailer:

The End of Suburbia; Hunt Angels; Elizabeth: the Golden Age

End of Suburbia Friday 3rd July @ 7.30pm

Hunt Angels Saturday 4th July @ 7.30pm

Elizabeth: The Golden Age Tuesday 7th July @ 12noon

All films at Reardon Theatre Bank Street Port Fairy. These are non-Film Society screenings, separate ticketing applies.

Cinema buffs in Port Fairy are spoilt for choice this week with three movies screening over five days. From the challenge of climate change to a little known story of two Aussie filmmaking larrikins to the virgin queen herself, there is a range of delights on offer at Reardon Theatre in Bank Street.

The History and Heritage Winter Weekends kicks off on Friday night with the documentary 'The End of Suburbia' (7.30pm), which charts modern society's obsession with the car and the havoc this has wreaked on notions of the good life. It's a gripping doco, with incisive figures such as Howard Kunstler cutting through the jargon and highlighting the folly of suburban dreaming as the ultimate dead-end. You'll never look at Caroline Springs the same way again.

'The End of Suburbia' has ignited communities around the world to confront their role in the perpetuation of the consumption culture which is damaging the soil, the society and the soul. A panel discussion after the film featuring some of Port Fairy's most passionate identities will look back nostalgically on a community we once had, identifying what we have misplaced and need to find again to live sustainably. The discussion will try to bring hope in finding solutions to counter the fear surrounding climate change. The film and discussion is an event of the newly formed Transition Towns Port Fairy group.

'Hunt Angels' (Saturday, 7.30pm) chronicles the life of Rupert Kathner, Australia's challenger to Ed Wood as the world's worst ever filmmaker. Starring Ben Mendelsohn as the hapless Kathner and Victoria Wood as his loyal, seductive co-creator, the film uses an interesting mix of interviews and archival footage into which the stars are digitally incorporated.

'Hunt Angels' looks great, recreating 1940s Sydney, Ballarat and Benalla beautifully, and it's a terrific yarn. Kathner was a true visionary, prepared to take on the big studios, the police state and the war propaganda machine. He also happened to be a liar, adulterer and crook with absolutely no aptitude for filmmaking whatsoever. Mendelsohn is wonderful in a role clearly made for his lovable roguish charisma.

The annual Red Cross fundraising film and luncheon on Tuesday (12 noon) has been advertised as a screening of 'The Duchess'. However, due to unforeseen circumstance the film 'Elizabeth: The Golden Age' will be shown instead. Starring Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush, who reprise their roles of the 1997 classic 'Elizabeth', this sequel showcases two of our finest acting exports.

'Elizabeth: the Golden Age' received only a lukewarm response from critics, and it is clearly a lesser film than its predecessor. However, it is still very enjoyable, and Blanchett is as luminous and powerful as ever. She inhabits the queen totally, and looks divine from one bejewelled frock to the next.

Elizabeth I's reign was a tumultuous one and made her reputation as a fierce leader. Where the film explores the tenderness of a woman carrying a burden of history, it also counters with her ruthlessness. Mary Queen of Scots, her nobility intact, could not survive such a force. A great way to spend a winter's lunch.

Click below to watch trailers:

Slumdog Millionaire - Friday June 19th

Jamal was a boy from the streets of Bombay, a 'slumdog' with no right to prospects or happy endings. But he's got something going for him - a destiny that was written before his mother was murdered, before he ran away from lecherous henchmen, before he became a Dickensian urchin hustler.

Now Jamal is clever, in love and confounding the host of India's Who Wants to be a Millionnaire by continuing to get the answers right as he accumulates a fortune he doesn't want. Is he cheating, a genius or just riding his luck?

Slumdog is the best film I've seen for five years. Director Danny Boyle is back to his Trainspotting best mixing pulsating (and, at times repulsive) action, a dash of Bollywood theatrics and a lovable lead character. It won all the Oscars and clever people are fond of knocking these sorts of films, but this is an exhilarating feast well worth the fuss.

Switching between three eras by matching particular events in Jamal's life to quiz questions he is forced to answer, Boyle generates pace and genuine tension throughout. The complexity of his relationship to older brother Salim, himself a classic angel-devil paradox, is fascinating and keeps you guessing until the very end. If you're not squirming in your seat in the final ten minutes you aren't human.

Three observations stayed with me. Firstly, one can't help admire Jamal and Salim because they are always running, literally and figuratively, away from the present towards an unknown which, whatever it is, has to be a better place. Two, you can't beat a love story. And three, it's hard to deny the delicious drama of the Who Wants to be a Millionaire franchise format. Anil Kapoor, who in real life is a lot more famous than Eddie McGuire (hard to believe, but true), is absolutely perfect as the egotistical host.

Slumdog is even better the second time around, and it deserves to be seen on the big screen.

"The climax was so tense I actually fell off my chair," said Marc Fennell from Triple J. "And the ending had me in tears. Tears of joy."

And from Port Fairy Film Society member Matt Neal from the Warrnambool Standard: "It's a touching tale told with boundless energy, moments of charming humour and an almost startling directness. You'd have to be stone-hearted not to be moved by Jamal'sCinderella-esque story."

"Compelling and moving, bitter sweet and haunting, it's one of the best films of the year, any year," wrote Andrew L Urban from Urban Cinefiles.

Slumdog Millionaire screens this Friday 19th June at 7.30pm at Port Fairy Cinema in Bank Street. Memberships available at the door with free tea and coffee provided.

Click below to watch preview:

The Lemon Tree - Friday 15th May, 7.30pm

On the border separating Israel and the West Bank, a widow earns her small income by tending her lemon tree grove. The Israeli Minister of Defense lives alongside the trees, which to him pose an unacceptable security risk. That's when good neighbours...

Despite her seeming powerlessness, Salma refuses to remove the trees planted by her father half a century ago and she finds an unlikely ally in the minister's wife. A young lawyer takes on her case and fights it right to the Supreme Court.

Salma, the widow David to the Israeli army's Goliath, is played by Hiam Abbass, who we saw recently as a grieving mother in that wonderful film The Visitor.

Based on actual events, The Lemon Tree recevied wide critical acclaim as a sensitive, gentle look at the Israeli-Palestine conflict as felt by the people that live there.

"Like the fruit of the lemon tree, The Lemon Tree is an astringent film, but just as welcome to the palate, in the right context," wrote Andrew L Urban of Urban Cinefiles.

"After The Band;s Visit and Waltz With Bashir there’s no doubt that Israeli cinema is doing exceptionally well at the moment with films that intelligently and with humanism explore the main source of conflict in the region," said Margaret Pomeratz of ABC1's At the Movies.

"A beautiful example of how a film can explore grand themes in microcosm," said Jim Slotek of Jam! Movies.

The Lemon Tree screens this Friday 17th April at 7.30pm at Port Fairy Cinema in Bank Street. Memberships available at the door with free tea and coffee provided. Please note we have simplified our membership structure (don't worry, it's exactly the same prices and deal, just simpler to understand than the previous system - we hope!) From this month ALL members who don't have 6 or 12 month memberships purchase 3-month memberships at the door for $24/$20 concession with the option of paying HALF on first visit (i.e $12/$10 - the same as current visitor passes) and half on second visit, with the third film free. These are valid to use until Feb 2010. All current membership cards floating around will still be valid.

Click below to watch trailer: