Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Bastardy

Amiel Courtin-Wilson's award-winning Bastardy screened at MIFF last year, is screening in competition at Sydney Film Festival this year and is by all accounts worth seeing. I've met the subject, Jack Charles, an aboriginal actor/cat burglar/heroin addict, who I stopped in the street a few years ago and had a colourful conversation with. I'd seen him a few days earlier in a small role in Alkinos Tsilimidos' excellent Tom White, with Colin Friels in the title role. We spoke like long lost friends and he had all the time in the world to chat. It was a lovely experience. At the time, I knew nothing of his dark history and look forward to seeing the film.

It's now been announced that the film has a two week season starting 25 June at the Kino in Melbourne, Chauvel in Sydney and Palace Barracks in Brisbane and Palace Nova Eastend in Adelaide. This is a good opportunity to support diversity in cinema by seeing a festival-quality film during a short theatrical release.

Update:
See Stephanie Bunbury's article in The Age about Amiel Courtin-Wilson and his recent film, Cicada, that screened recently in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes

3 comments:

syms said...

I saw it the other day. It's excellent.

Paul Martin said...

Thanks, Syms. FWIW, I've updated the original post with a link to a recent interview with the director.

Scott Henderson said...

Must confess I skipped a press screening this morning because I've got writing to do, keen to catch it as part of Sydney Film Festival. Glad to see it's going to get a limited run.