Adelaide Film Festival

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From the Advertiser:


Lights, camera ... Adelaide action

TIM LLOYD

January 20, 2007 12:00am

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ADELAIDE came eyeball to eyeball with its Film Festival at its official launch yesterday.
The festival will present 150 films, including 19 world premieres, and run for 11 days from February 22.
"It has literally something for everyone," said festival artistic director Katrina Sedgwick.
World cinema, arthouse, satire, documentaries, animation and even sports documentaries are in the mix. Films will appear on cinema screens, laptops and mobile phones.
The full film festival program is in liftout magazine form in today's Advertiser.
Launching the festival, Premier and Arts Minister Mike Rann announced that East Timor Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jose Ramos Horta would be a star of the festival.
Mr Horta will come to Adelaide to appear in a forum with Mr Rann after the screening of the documentary, The Diplomat, which shows Mr Horta during the lead-up to East Timor's independence referendum. Mr Rann announced Adelaide film-maker Rolf de Heer was the winner of the 2007 Don Dunstan Award for outstanding contributions to the Australian film industry.
The award is presented at a special ceremony at the opening night of each festival and previous winners include David Gulpilil, a star of Rolf de Heer's movie, The Tracker, and narrator of his latest success, Ten Canoes.
De Heer's new movie, Dr Plonk - in which Mr Rann has a bit part - will have its world premiere screening on the closing night of the festival. Mr Rann said de Heer had made a sustained, highly original contribution to cinema in SA for more than 20 years.
"He has achieved brilliant success over the past year or so, and was the South Australian of the Year for 2006," he said.
Katrina Sedgwick said the SA connections in the festival were growing from festival to festival.
"We are seeing such a strong generation of emerging film-makers," she said.
Adelaide was one of the few festivals in the world that commissioned films.
This year, 12 new films had arisen from the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund.
"This year's festival is the first real indication of what the potential is of the Investment Fund," she said. "Four years down the track we can really see the opportunities coming out."