Australian Film Festival News, Program and Trailers

Now in its third year, the annual Australian Film Festival celebrates the huge array of Australian creative talent in the feature film, short film, online content and television industries. This year's Festival will open with SWERVE at the Randwick Ritz Cinema on March 7. The closing night film is the horror film REDD INC., which has Tom Savini (FRIDAY THE 13TH, DAWN OF THE DEAD) as its special make-up effects supervisor. 

Included in this year's stellar line-up at the Australian Film Festival are:

SWERVE (Opening Night Film and Sydney premiere)

 

A suitcase of money, a woman, two men; a lot can happen in the middle of nowhere.

Driving cross-country to a job interview, Colin plays it safe when he has car problems and takes a short cut to a one horse town. But as luck would have it, he comes across a fatal road accident. One of the drivers, Jina, is shaken, the other dead and beside him, a briefcase full of money. When Colin resists temptation and does the right thing, turning it into the local cop, his good deed causes a series of fateful events to unfold.

HAIL 

Dan is in love with Leanne. 

They were born on the same day- 19th June 1960.

They eat together. 

They live together. 

They steal together.

When Dan's love is suddenly ripped away from him, he is reduced to savagery.
 Haunted by damning memories, Dan inhabits a world created by an idiot- unfinished, incomplete. Crushed by malevolent beauty, suffocating and filled with violence, Dan thrashes against the tide and goes on a journey to take back what is his. 

MORE 4 ME (Sydney premiere)

The global journey to find the one thing we can't live without?

This feature documentary about the Need vs the Greed journeys across five continents. New York, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Perth, Australia are contrasted with Cambodia, a Kenyan orphanage and the slums of Nairobi, as he interviews everyone from actors and models to orphans and street sweepers.

RED DOG (Free screening)

He's been everywhere mate!

Based on the legendary true story of the Red Dog who united a disparate local community while roaming the Australian outback in search of his long lost master. 

An English chef with a chic restaurant on Bondi Beach trying to put his life and his relationship with his son back on track while surrounded by women.

The stunningly shot kaleidoscope of scenes, buzzing back and forth  only reflects the state of mind of a bereaved man who uses sex to overcome his grief. 

A 'pop-art' film about love, loss and desperation.... dealt with with sex, drugs and parties.

Based on the cult novel by Cry Bloxsome, LBF (aka 'Living Between F***s') follows Paris based writer Goodchild (Toby Schmitz) as he returns to Australia for the funeral of his ex-girlfriend, The Dead Girl (Gracie Otto) and steadily goes off the rails. Drugs, parties, love, sex, lust, sobriety, solitude, no-sex and death collide in this hyper real, pop-culture infused portrait of twenty-something Goodchild, as he drifts through his life, memories and rock n' roll. 

This is not a surf movie, it is a film about surfing's deepest roots: in the subconscious; in ancient lore; in the craft of surfboard building; in man's perpetual quest for a joyful relationship with the natural world.  

In eleven interwoven chapters, today's leading surfers are linked to those who came before, for a deeper appreciation of what it means to be a surfer and the soulful underlying power of modern surf culture. It is a film about feeling good to be alive...and it will make you feel good.

REDD INC. (Closing Night Film and World premiere)

"It's nothing personal..."

Redd Inc. is the story of a capricious, officious and vicious boss (Redd) who traps his victims and forces them to work in an horrific office of his own insane creation. 

They are tasked with a seemingly impossible job which they must complete or face a grisly "termination".

Embedded below are the trailers for the Australian Film Festival's opening and closing night films, SWERVE and REDD INC.. For further details and to see more film trailers, visit the official website.