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21st anniversary in the 21st century…
That’s the Festival des Antipodes!


Vai

It’s in the heart of the village that inspired the luminous painter Paul Signac that you’ll have the chance to immerse yourself in the best of cinema from down under – without even leaving Saint-Tropez’s legendary Place des Lices! After welcoming at last year’s 20th anniversary festival a world-famous movie industry icon, director of The Piano Jane Campion, who was so open and friendly, and after inviting the talented and delightful actor Greta Scacchi, star of Heat and Dust and The Coca-Cola Kid, as president of our Feature Film Jury, how can we possibly do one better this year to celebrate our "coming of age"? The solution is perhaps to continue in this direction in 2019 and offer a perspective on the work of women – directors, actors, producers – and to highlight indigenous filmmakers.


At this year’s festival, you’ll discover Waru, a New Zealand film directed by eight Maori women that presents eight viewpoints that shed a light on the death of a young Maori boy. In a similar vein, Vai, which was shown at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, follows the story of a young girl from the age of eight to eighty, recounted by eight women directors from the Pacific region. Keeping a link with our 20th anniversary edition, we bring you Hibiscus & Ruthless, the latest film by New Zealand director Stallone Vaiaoga-Ioasa, who won our Audience Award last year with his debut feature, Three Wise Cousins.
From Australia comes the stunning pictorial poem by Ben Hackworth titled Celeste. At the other end of the spectrum, Ladies in Black takes us into a Sydney department store in the late 1950s, to be shown in a premiere screening thanks to the generosity of its distributor. This is also the case for the compelling drama Slam, scheduled for release in the first months of 2020, which invites us to reflect on the sometimes destructive power of the press and our preconceptions There’ll be plenty of laughter with Top End Wedding, the new comedy by Aboriginal director Wayne Blair, whose film The Sapphires was presented at Cannes in 2012.
Humour of the dark variety prevails in Brothers’ Nest, which follows in the tradition of the Coen brothers, combining iconoclastic, quirky black comedy and endearing characters. And let’s not forget the superb and astonishing Blue Moon, a film noir from New Zealand shot on an iPhone!

Celeste


Documentaries will once again make their presence felt, with this year’s festival offering an opportunity to raise our awareness of climate change and environmental issues that concern us all. Another topical subject is that of the restitution of artefacts and human remains stolen from many different indigenous peoples notably by state authorities and museums. On a lighter note, and for a complete change of scene, we follow New Zealand actor Sam Neill as he retraces the route taken by Captain Cook across the Pacific.

samneillintro


Last but not least, a magnificent exhibition awaits you in the Salle Jean Despas of works by Australian artists Shona Nunan and Michael Cartwright, who have recently installed their studios in Correns, Provence. The Antipodes Juniors selection aimed at young audiences will be back, along with the Antipodean Short Film Competition and many other surprises


So, let’s get ready to head to Saint-Tropez and make every day a festival of cinema, culture and dialogue across the oceans…


Bernard Bories
Président of the Cinéma des Antipodes

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