Peter Sellars’ New Crowned Hope Films To Screen At The 2007 Adelaide Film Festival
The Adelaide Film Festival is delighted to screen six commissioned feature films from Peter Sellars’ New Crowned Hope Festival, which takes place in Vienna in November 2006, as part of the Vienna Mozart Year 2006.
The seven extraordinary films from different corners of the globe include new features by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun from Chad, Tsai Ming-Liang from Taiwan and Malaysia, Garin Nugroho from Indonesia, Teboho Mahlatsi from South Africa, Apichatpong Weerasethakul from Thailand and, with her feature debut, Paz Encina from Paraguay.
For this festival celebrating Mozart’s 250th anniversary, artistic director Peter Sellars took on a highly original approach and rather than re-presenting Mozart's own works, he commissioned completely new works from contemporary, international artists in the fields of music and opera, architecture, the visual arts and film.
The aim of the New Crowned Hope festival is to use Mozart's themes as both inspiration and a springboard for contemporary works reflecting on issues at the heart of this new century. The commissions are all inspired by and explore the deeper issues that Mozart miraculously treated in the three great works from the last year of his life: The Magic Flute, La Clemenza di Tito and the Requiem.
The primary themes are those of magic and transformation, forgiveness and reconciliation and recognition of the dead. These issues are those that Peter Sellars passionately feels make Mozart's work so crucially relevant to our moment in history.
Emphasising a range of international directors of different generations and from very different countries and cultures, the New Crowned Hope films focus on directors and projects that reflect profoundly on our changing world.
Like Mozart, these artists are also seeking new ways in which to describe the world, ways that explore new possibilities for cinema. The Curators and Executive Producers of the New Crowned Hope film program are Simon Field and Keith Griffiths of Illuminations Films, London.
This very ambitious commissioning of international projects echoes a similar project of Peter Sellars when he commissioned several Australian features for his programme of the Adelaide Festival in 2002, including Rolf De Heer’s Tracker. The program was the inspiration for the Adelaide Film Festival’s own Investment Fund, so it is particularly fitting to have this exciting programme of international projects screen within the 2007 Adelaide Film Festival.
For bookings and more info visit www.adelaidefilmfestival.org, or phone the AFF Ticket Hotline on 1300 399 849
Films
HAMACA PARAGUAYA / Paraguayan Hammock Paz Encina
DARATT / Dry Season Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
SEKALLI LE MEOKGO / Meokgo and the Stickfighter Teboho Mahlatsi
OPERA JAWA Garin Nugroho
HEI YAN QUAN / I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone Tsai Ming-Liang
SANG SATTAWAT / Syndromes and a Century Apichatpong Weerasethakul
