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Adelaide Film Festival unveils Aussie premieres

Rolf de Heer on location for Charlie's Country with David Gulpilil

Rolf de Heer's Charlie's Country, Warwick Thornton’s The Darkside and Rowan Woods' The Broken Shore will have their world premieres at the 2013 Adelaide Film Festival, which runs October 10-20.

Among the other world premieres unveiled today by the AFF’s new CEO/ Director Amanda Duthie are the Adelaide-shot features One-Eyed Girl and 52 Tuesdays and the documentaries All This Mayhem, Muriel Matters and Sons and Mothers.

Duthie ticked off an impressive list of 166 titles from 48 countries, including 28 world premieres, 47 Australian premieres and 34 South Australian projects. The line-up features 14 works including seven features which were supported by the AFF’s investment fund.

As announced, the fest will open with John Curran’s South Australian-shot Tracks, the true story of Robyn Davidson’s solo 2,700 km trek via camels across the Australian desert in 1977, accompanied by her dog Diggity. Curran, Davidson and Rick Smolan, the US photographer who joined her for part of the journey, will attend the premiere.

The 2013 Don Dunstan Award will be presented that night to South Australian filmmaker Scott Hicks, who broke through with Shine.

The closer is A Story of Children and Film, Mark Cousins’ documentary which chronicles the adventures of childhood through 53 films from 25 countries, including E.T. the Extra- Terrestrial and The Red Balloon.

Charlie’s Country stars David Gulpilil as ‘blackfella Charlie,' who decides he wants to live life the old way but sets off a chain of events that result in him returning to his community.

In The Darkside, Thornton takes a collection of poignant, sad, funny, absurd and true ghost tales from across Australia and brings them to life with a stellar cast of storytellers including Deborah Mailman, Bryan Brown, Aaron Pedersen, Shari Sebbens and Sacha Horler.

Based on Peter Temple’s book, The Broken Shore stars Don Hany, Claudia Karvan, Erik Thomson, Catherine McClements, Dan Wyllie and Robyn Nevin in the saga of a cop who uncovers a cycle of lies, betrayal and systematic corruption in a small Victorian community.

Sophie Hyde’s 52 Tuesdays follows 16-year-old Billie as she deals with her mother’s plans to undergo gender transition, filmed over the course of a year.

Nick Matthews’ One-Eyed Girl stars Mark Leonard Winter as a 30-something psychiatrist who is haunted by the death of a former patient.

Eddie Martin’s All This Mayhem looks at Tas and Ben Pappas, who rose from Melbourne’s Western suburbs to become champion skateboarders but entered a drug-fuelled spiral.

Sonia Bible’s Muriel Matters tells of the Adelaide actress who made world headlines in London in 1909 when she took to the skies under a 25-metre balloon emblazoned with the slogan ‘Votes for Women.’

Sons and Mothers from director Christopher Houghton looks at a group of marginalised men in Adelaide who are guided by a theatre director to create a theatrical love letter to their mothers.

The venues include Palace Nova Eastend, the Piccadilly and the Festival Centre. The Adelaide Showgrounds will host two drive-in screenings: The sing-along version of Grease and Mark Hartley’s Patrick.

Producer Al Clark is this year’s president of the jury, alongside producer Liz Watts, writer-director-actor Wayne Blair, Maryanne Redpath, director of the Generation section at the Berlin International Film Festival and Lawrence Weschler, artistic director emeritus of the Chicago Humanities Festival.

The films competing for the $25,000 Foxtel Movies International Prize are:

The Past/ Directed by Asghar Farhadi/ France& Italy

Omar/ Directed by Hany Abu-­Assad/ Palestine

Only Lovers Left Alive/ Directed by Jim Jarmusch/ UK/Germany/France/Cyprus/US

How I Live Now/  Directed by Kevin McDonald/UK

The Selfish Giant/ Directed by Clio Barnard/UK

Jin / Directed by Reha Erdam/Turkey

Dance of Reality  /Directed by Alejandro Joderowsky/Chile

The Notebook/ Directed by János Szász/ Hungary/Germany/Austria/France

Bastards/  Directed by Claire Denis / France

Beatriz’s War/  Directed by Luigi Acquisto & Bety Reis /East Timor

Stranger by the Lake/ Directed by Alain Guiraudie/ France

These Final Hours/ Directed by Zak Hilditch/ Australia

Thumbnail image of Deborah Mailman by Tony Mott