WELCOME MESSAGES
Hon. Mike Rann
Premier of South Australia
The 2007 Adelaide Film Festival promises to challenge and entertain and spoil us as never before.
Young Turks and old masters; lavish epics and edgy shorts; political satire and environmental warnings; art house eroticism and epic spectacle; fresh new perspectives from Chad and Russia, Paraguay and Thailand; love and sorrow and family chronicle: this Festival will include the very best in contemporary world cinema.
Still the only Australian festival that both screens and finances films, we this year offer 12 world premieres of new works made with the support of the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund.
The Fund is doing brilliantly so far. Its first two features, Look Both Ways and Ten Canoes, both won Best Film and many other categories at the AFI Awards in 2005 and 2006, and significant awards and acclaim overseas – including at Cannes and Toronto. In 2007, I am looking forward to Rolf de Heer’s next marvel, Dr Plonk.
This Festival will also offer another first: the inaugural Natuzzi International Award for Best Feature Film, and it will again coincide with Adelaide’s hosting of the Australian International Documentary Conference.
If you love rich and varied cinema, cinema that engages the thinking heart; and if you like movies that spring from big ideas and not just big budgets and Hollywood vulgarity, then Rundle Street, Adelaide, is where you should be from 22 February to 4 March, taking the trip.
See you there.
Mike Rann
Premier of South Australia
Minister for the Arts
Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change
Cheryl Bart
Chariman
It is very exciting to present the third edition of the Adelaide Film Festival.
In 2007, over 11 packed days of screenings and events, we are delighted to be presenting films from 37 countries including 15 world premieres and 60 Australian premieres.
Our festival continues to cause a major stir for its innovative programs and partnerships - not only through our Investment Fund, our partnership with the Australian International Documentary Conference, and our newly established feature film competition, but also through our engagement with the digital realm in Crossover and The Broadcast Summit, events we are co-presenting with the South Australian Film. And we celebrate the moving image not only in our cinemas, but in the visual arts world through our Art and the Moving Image program.
The Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund has selected twelve projects which will be unveiled at this year’s festival, comprised of 4 feature films, 3 feature length documentaries and 5 short films. These films build on the success of our critically acclaimed and multi award winning slate of the past two years which has included LOOK BOTH WAYS and TEN CANOES.
We have seen our partnership with the Australian International Documentary Conference develop wonderful opportunities for both of our organizations and we look forward to enhancing the partnership in the future with the SAFC and Arts SA.
We would like to thank the Premier Mike Rann for his vision and passion, and the Government of South Australia, through Arts SA, for its continuing support.
Of course our sponsors are invaluable to our success and we thank you for your ongoing commitment to us and look forward to a mutually beneficial partnership.
And thank you of course to my wonderful Board, Festival Director Katrina Sedgwick and the amazing Festival team for your hard work, passion and imagination. It’s going to be a sensational festival – enjoy!
Katrina Sedgwick
Festival Director
The 2007 Adelaide Film Festival celebrates the screen in all its diversity. Over the 11 days of our festival you can immerse yourself in over 150 feature films, documentaries, shorts, music videos, animations, new media works – in cinemas, galleries, theatres – on your computers and your mobile phone – the festival will be everywhere.
We offer you the chance to see a snapshot of the ideas, issues, realities and imaginations of artists and individuals, communities and nations around the world. As the reality of global warming begins to reveal itself, and the ongoing war in Iraq highlights questions going to the heart of our complacent Western notions of benevolent democracy, we see new themes emerge. Intimate stories are explored, families and community celebrated, politics are an ever-present undercurrent – and, improbably, humour still pushes its way to the front of the line.
Festivals bring people together; they stimulate ideas and debate. Our Laboratories, symposia and forums explore the creative opportunities that the incredible new tools offered by digital technology, can provide to everyone who wants to tell a story on the screen – from Machinima, to low budget filmmaking to the future of broadcasting and interactivity.
Many of the films in our program will never be seen in Adelaide again – don’t miss PASSIO, our focus on Russian Cinema, the ever-popular Music and Sports Docs strands as well as our programs exploring Ecology, Interactivity and Art & the Moving Image. A huge thank you to Cheryl Bart and our wonderful Board. Thank you to the fantastic staff of the Adelaide Film Festival and particularly to Associate Director Adele Hann whose extraordinary contribution to the festival has been fundamental to the creation of this program.
