Hedda, British Film Festival and Focus on Jafar Panahi

For this Out Takes, we went on a global cinematic trip looking at films and filmmakers from Britain, Iran, and the U.S.A.
First up, we looked at ‘Hedda’, the latest provocative drama from writer-director Nia DaCosta which is a modern reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s classic. This time around, the action has been transposed from 19th-century Oslo to 1950’s Britain, where former bohemian free-spirit Hedda has moved into a sprawling estate with her new husband, the pinched and humourless academic George. Hedda has a lot going on – as the daughter of a general navigating a house she does not want and a marriage she feels trapped in, and a female ex-lover who reappears in her life. Tessa Thompson is exceptional in the title role and delivers a performance that is a bold and haunting portrait of a woman on the edge.
We were then joined by Palace Cinema’s National Program Manager Kim Patelas to discuss the return this November of the Russell Hobbs British Film Festival and some of the highlights in this year’s program. As the Festival’s curator and who worked for Palace for 40 years, Kim started the British Film Festival and even though he retired from Palace in 2021 he has continued to program the Festival and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of British film.
We concluded the show with a look at the upcoming ‘Focus on Jafar Panahi’ retrospective that is coming to Melbourne this November. While he has not directed any explicit queer films, his work often addresses social restrictions that heavily affect marginalised individuals, including LGBTQ+ people. Despite arrests, filmmaking bans, and restrictions on travelling outside of Iran, Jafar Panahi has resolutely made films marked by profound humanism for over 30 years. ACMI has curated a program of twelve films, from his breakout feature ‘The White Balloon’ to the Out Takes favourite ‘Offside’ through to this year’s Palme d’Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival, ‘It Was Just an Accident’.

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