Metro

An Australian–US co-production directed by Chris Peckover, who co-wrote the script with Zack Kahn, Better Watch Out (2016) is an immensely fun black comedy replete with horror tropes – as humorous as it is disturbing. It sets up a typical babysitter-

A young man and woman sit on a beach during a lull in a free-diving session. Side by side, they stare companionably out to sea. She coaxes him back into the water … then wakes up abruptly in a high-rise city apartment, an inky tear rolling down her c

Warwick Thornton attracted global accolades with his feature-film debut Samson & Delilah in 2009, and has been the subject of fevered anticipation ever since. In the intervening years, he has remained prolific in his work as a cinematographer (partic

Yolanda Ramke and Ben Howling are among that fortunate breed of filmmaker who builds a reputation on the strength of one undeniably good short film. In this case, their 2013 Tropfest effort, Cargo – a heartfelt, elegiac riff on the zombie subgenre –

Directed by Steven Kastrissios, Bloodlands (2017) is a co-production between Australia and the Republic of Albania, a small European country nestled on the south-west of the Balkan Peninsula. Yet the folklore, culture and history that lie at the core

Jacques Lacan’s notion of the ‘mirror stage’ embodies a powerful intersection of psychoanalysis and film theory; when identical twins are the focal point of a cinematic narrative, the work becomes fertile ground for exploring the subconscious terrain

Blue World Order (Ché Baker & Dallas Bland, 2016) is a science fiction action-adventure set during the aftermath of a nuclear war that has annihilated the Northern Hemisphere, with the world’s remaining population controlled by a self-appointed total

Fedora-wearing detectives ripped from the pages of Raymond Chandler. Supernatural wraiths clad in black overcoats, their existential experiments splintering a city shrouded in shadows. And, at the core of it all, a dark love story. European auteurs L

The poster for Jungle (Greg McLean, 2017) features actor Daniel Radcliffe with a shaggy beard, wearing a soaked-through flannel shirt and brandishing a machete, surrounded by Amazon greenery and mist. ‘Nature has only one law – survival’, reads the t

I have been a diehard fan of US television franchise Survivor since its first season, released nearly eighteen years ago, when Richard Hatch graced the beaches of Borneo completely naked. During the television run of Network Ten’s 2016 reboot of Aust

In her essay ‘The Empathy Exams’, Leslie Jamison writes of her experience as a medical actor; she is given a script and tasked with performing the role of a ‘standardised patient’ for a doctor-in-training. The aspiring doctors are rated on their perf

The typical road movie finds profundity in the quotidian, drawing together apparently unrelated encounters into an overarching, epiphanic tapestry. It’s tempting to so categorise Kirsten Tan’s Pop Aye (2017), which follows the journey of middle-aged

At the beginning of The Challenge (2016), Yuri Ancarani’s film about a falconry tournament in the Qatari desert, we hard-cut from the opening credits to a striking, puzzling image. There, in an otherwise-barren stretch of sand, stands a towering blac

In Wolf and Sheep (Shahrbanoo Sadat, 2016), rural village life is a picture of structure and order. Men argue about the size of their flocks and what it says about their standing, while their wives embark on the same line of thinking by judging other

I remember thinking – well, actually, wasn’t thinking; I felt. I felt just sheer joy. And I felt this weird sensation of bewilderment that no-one in this country knew about this choir. How is this possible? I’m on the phone with documentary filmmaker

In the late 1920s, the Arrernte families of Ntaria (later established as the Lutheran mission of Hermannsburg) in the Northern Territory lost an estimated 85 per cent of their children to scurvy and malnutrition, brought on by severe drought. Stricke

Welcome to Questa Casa. I’m Carmel; I’m the madam here. My story is that I fell into a deep pit of depression when I was widowed. Went to see my lady doctor; I said, ‘I think my hormones need adjusting.’ She said, ‘There’s nothing the matter with you

When Netflix launched in Australia in March 2015, it was an exciting time. After years of being denied the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service, we had a Netflix of our own – and with it came the promise of original programming. For years, the

It’s been three years since David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz farewelled the nation with the final episode of their iconic weekly film-review show, At the Movies. Aired on 9 December 2014, this episode was watched by a metropolitan viewing audienc

Australia didn’t enter into any international co-productions until 1986, when we signed a memorandum of understanding with France; this makes our film industry a very late bloomer compared to others across the world. As our burgeoning industry starte