Buy a Festival Pass
See all four films without having to purchase individual tickets. Just turn up with your pass at the door.
Pass holders are invited to Launch Party on the Deck including a complimentary drink, Friday 5:30 pm
Members, have you logged in and you can’t see your discounted passes? Try refreshing the Page. Please note it may take a moment for the prices to appear once you refresh the page.
Once purchased, please pick up your pass from the Launch Party or Box Office.
From the Director, Dr Andrew Wallace…
Our 2023 Festival brings together the related domains of writing and cinema. Films begin as written scripts. Often those scripts have their origin in published books.
Films can be about writers, real or imagined. And cinema influences the creative sensibility of many modern novelists. Lots of interesting issues arise to think and talk about.
Our four feature films show writers at work in a variety of genres and contexts, facing different pressures and constraints. Although diverse in subject and style there are interesting connections between them
Out-takes
‘Out-takes’ on Saturday afternoon is a free session in which a panel of authors addresses issues raised by our films as well the general relation of books and cinema. They are:
Steven Lang: Well-known Maleny novelist and host of Outspoken
Anthony Mullins: Award-winning writer who recently published Beyond the Hero’s Journey, a book about screenwriting.
Sally Piper: Her latest novel The Geography of Friendship is currently being adapted for the screen.
The session lasts an hour but the conversation will continue over drinks. Bar service as well as tea & coffee will be available.
She Said
USA 2022 | Drama / History | 129 mins | M
Two female investigative reporters from The New York Times search for evidence that can be published about the abuses perpetrated by the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Locating victims is not easy and by no means enough. They uncover the systematic ways in which victims are silenced and the powerful are protected. The film stars Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, and is based on their book about the case, which helped launch the MeToo movement.
Adaptation
USA 2001 | Drama / Comedy | 150 mins | MA15+
A fictional drama about a writer struggling to adapt a (real) book for the screen. The renowned and always highly original screenwriter Charlie Kauffman imagines himself as this shy and unconfident person plagued by writer’s block and an irritating (fictional) twin brother. Nicholas Cage plays both, with Meryl Streep as Susan Orlean the author of The Orchid Thief. There is some sharp satire of the pat conventional advice given to aspiring writers but Charlie’s aspirations to artistic integrity are vexed as increasingly bizarre events unfold. There is plenty of humour here but important questions too: just where do fiction and truth begin and end?
Paterson
USA 2016 | Drama / Comedy | 118 mins | M
A gentle humorous film directed by Jim Jarmusch, famous for his quirky observations of American life. Adam Driver plays a bus driver called Paterson who lives in Paterson, New Jersey. He writes short poems in the style of William Carlos Williams, who wrote about the town in the early 20th century. He loves his wife, who wants to be a C & W singer and also start a cupcake business, and he owns a dog you won’t soon forget. This is someone who looks at the ordinary life around him with curiosity and affection and tries to translate it into art using words. This has been described as “a small miracle of a film” and a poem in its own right. It will make you feel better about humanity. Including Americans.
Lost Illusions (Illusions Perdue)
France 2021 | Historical Drama | 150 mins | M
Adapted from the novel by Honoré de Balzac, this is the story of Lucien, an idealistic young writer from the country who hopes to further his career in Paris in 1821. He finds that artistic integrity is impossible in a world where everything is for sale. Eventually, his talent for satiric putdowns allows him to flourish in a seedy journalistic world where reviewers of books and plays are routinely bribed. Balzac’s blistering satire of a world where commercial interests compete for influence over a readily manipulated public has fascinating parallels to today’s world of fake news and social media mendacity. A lavishly produced film with a brilliant cast.
