Samuel Hilton

Next: A Primer on Urban Painting is an examination of the global phenomenon of street art and graffiti. The Quebec Canadian documentary is the...

Today, Sydney’s Possible Worlds: Canadian Film Festival kicks off, and it promises to be quite a week of cinema. It was a surprise to me to learn that it is the first Canadian Film Festival in Sydney as there has been an abundance of annual minor festivals of national cinema popping up over the last ten years. The festival will be taking place at the city’s recently revitalised art house cinema, the Chauvel. What really separates the Canadian Film Festival from other national cinema festival are the events lined up to accompany the program.

It is award season in Australia again and the time for the small number of people in the Australian film industry to come together and pat each other on the back for a mostly mediocre job well done. The most prestigious of the three major award ceremonies that occur over the next month is the L’Oreal Paris Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards. It is the ceremony that attracts big names and they like people to know that. Russell Crowe hosted last year. Who cares if he isn’t actually Australian?

It is always exciting when an acclaimed filmmaker who has sat the last several years out finally returns to the director’s chair. Angel-A is hotly anticipated for such as it marks the return of, and the beginning of goodbye from, Luc Besson.

To see an exceedingly imaginative and creative director like Michel Gondry let loose to all his potential on a film sounds to be an ideal way to spend of couple of hours in the dark. Certainly, that’s what his newest film, The Science of Sleep, promises to be.