The Travelling Film Festival is back in 2023 to delight filmgoers when it returns to the Moncrieff Entertainment Centre for a weekend of diverse and entertaining cinema.
The acclaimed program has been curated for Bundaberg audiences and features high-class world films.
The festival will feature a variety of homegrown hits as well as international award-winners from Canada, Iran, Norway, India.
A total of 10 films, including three Australian short films, will captivate audiences on the big screen.
Past Lives
Opening the festival will be the highly acclaimed new film, Past Lives which captured hearts around the world since winning the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival.
This delicate, spellbinding, debut romance by Celine Song starring Greta Lee (Russian Doll, The Morning Show) and Teo Yoo (Decision to Leave) explores fate, missed chances, and the people that connect us to who we were… and who we could be.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Past Lives is widely considered a likely best picture contender at the Oscars.
Shayda
Local Australian films are also screened for the festival, including Shayda, the Sundance Audience Prize-winning debut from director Noora Niasari, executive produced by Cate Blanchett.
Cannes Best Actress winner Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider) stars as Shayda in this stirring drama about an Iranian migrant battling the legal system to protect her 6-year-old daughter in Australia.
It’s a story that finds joy in the small things and new friendships forged.
Last Film Show
Indian filmmaking luminary Pan Nalin (Samsara) returns with a heartwarming ode to cinema in Last Film Show.
It follows Samay, a nine-year-old boy in a remote Indian village who discovers the magic of cinema and must go to extraordinary lengths to satisfy his new love in a time of great change in his village.
Scrapper
2023 Sundance Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema Dramatic) winner Scrapper will delight and charm audiences as it follows 12-year-old Georgie (Lola Campbell) who happily lives alone, avoiding social services by claiming to live with her uncle “Winston Churchill”.
That is until her estranged party-boy father, Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness), shows up and they must learn to grow up together.
Subtraction
From the Toronto International Film Festival, comes the riveting psychological mystery Subtraction by leading Iranian filmmaker Mani Haghighi (Pig, SFF 2018).
Married couple Farzaneh and Jalal meet their mysterious and much wealthier exact doppelgangers.
This elegantly executed mystery keeps you guessing all the way.
Fallen Leaves
Just awarded Best Film of the past year by International Film Critics Federation, is the off-beat and hilarious romance Fallen Leaves from Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki.
A lonely supermarket worker and an even lonelier metalworker walk into a bar… and lost phone numbers, adorable dogs, and a delightfully deadpan courtship ensue.
La Chimera
Josh O’Connor (The Crown) proves again he is a rising star to watch in La Chimera, this Cannes-selected slick heist film.
Set in 1980s Tuscany, a rowdy crew of misfits plan to pilfer ancient tombs for treasures to sell on the black market.
Audiences will be swept away with the delicate magic and charm that permeates every scene, and the inclusion of Isabella Rossellini (Blue Velvet) in the cast.
Short films
The Travelling Film Festival is also proud to present three Australian short films from this year’s Sydney Film Festival.
Screening with Past Lives is Katele, by Torres Strait Islander filmmaker John Harvey.
Spoken in English and Kala Kawa Ya, the film was also selected for the Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films and features Bangarra alumni Elma Kris and Waangenga Blanco.
Screen NSW’s Screenability Filmmakers Fund has delivered two brilliant short films including director Jason King’s short Chum, written by Eliza South, who also stars as a blind woman who bonds with a stranger, but all is not as it seems.
Young Director Awards Gold winner Victoria Singh-Thompson wrote and directed 14 in February which follows a hard of hearing student who finds her resolve when confronted by a teacher, also screens.
Travelling Film Festival 2023
Moncrieff Entertainment Centre – 177 Bourbong Street, Bundaberg
Friday 6 October to Sunday 8 October
Cost: Single ticket $15 per film, full subscription (seven films) $90 or flexipass (five films) $70
More information about the Travelling Film Festival 2023 can be found here.
