The best thing about a film festival is that you get to see brilliant films that may never be available through mainstream release. Antenna Documentary Film Festival will help you get closer to some of the most significant issues in the world today – from refugee experiences, to the ongoing impact of colonisation in Australia, to the struggle of trans people around the world. Here are just 5 picks of the program:
- Aesthetic radicals of stone and soil (Troublemakers)
In 1960s America, a group of artists rejected the museum and its ‘plastic aesthetics’ in favour of monumental projects set in expansive natural landscapes. Troublemakers: The story of land art tells the story of these radical artists using rare footage.
- A tribute to a brilliant mind (The seasons in Quincy: Four portraits of John Berger)
In The seasons in Quincy: Four portraits of John Berger, three luminaries including Tilda Swinton craft a portrait of this admired art critic and intellectual. Berger is best known for Ways of Seeing, which is regarded as one of the most influential art programmes ever made.
- Fear itself
“You feel the fear before you can make sense of it.” This atmospheric essay film combines more than 100 of the most chilling moments in cinema to explore the different ways in which filmmakers play with our fears – and why we let them.
- A nuclear walled-city opens (City 40)
In a plot that sounds more Tarkovsky than reality, City 40 opens us to the lives of the residents of a small Russian town that is heavily contaminated with radiation.
- Do not resist
The deaths of Michael Brown, Alton Sterling and Eric Garner are some of the most widely reported of the hundreds of African-Americans dying at the hands of police in America each year. Do not resist explains the militarisation of US police forces, with a close look at how they are trained to respond to real and imagined threats.
There’s also a special treat for those who love an immersive experience. The festival’s first-ever virtual reality program allows you to see some of the most enthralling virtual realities on show – for free.
Antenna Documentary Film Festival is on from 11 to 16 October.
