GERRINGONG PICS AND FLICKS

We want to know which movies you enjoyed during 2018, which you didn't like as much, and what you would be interested in seeing. Help us provide a better movie-going experience for you by completing this survey. Just 5 minutes of your time and it is anonymous. Survey closes Tuesday 31 January 2019 - results advised at our first Gerringong Pics & Flicks screening on Friday 1st February 2019. Click or tap on this link and rank each film that you saw.  There is also space to add extra comments too, which we would really appreciate. Pics and Flicks films in 2018 - Survey Thanks for your time and support of Gerringong Pics and Flicks.

Study Grants  Whether you’re experienced or just starting out ,  Pics & Flicks is offering financial assistance in 2019 to help locals develop their filmmaking, TV, radio or online production skills.  Where ?  At the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, Moore Park Sydney.    AFTRS offers great short courses in   * Screenwriting        * Directing        * Production        *  Editing       * Animation       * Cinematography  * and much more! Successful applicants will receive a grant of up to $500  to help cover the cost of the course of their choice.  Grants will be available to people from the greater Kiama region, 16 years of age and older.  Some current and coming AFTRS courses include;   ○ Camera and Sound Fundamentals, 2 days  ○ Assistant Directi...

   Finely tuned ensemble comedy that sees the preparations for a wedding go hilariously awry Forget Bridezilla.  C’est la Vie  boasts Groomzilla Pierre (Lavernhe), whose attempts to micromanage his lavish 17th century chateau wedding to Héléna (Judith Chemla), prove trying for the wedding planner and his battalion of catering staff, musicians and serving staff. It looks fabulous but behind the scenes they've lost the DJ, the photographer keeps eating the canapes, the lamb spoils and there's a rumour that someone from the taxation dept is sniffing around the event. The wedding planner's brother-in-law, a depressed teacher coming back from a breakdown, is secretly in love with the bride and the groom's mother is popping up on a dating app. Director:  Olivier Nakache & Éric Toledano Starring:  Jean-Pierre Bacri, Gilles Lellouche, Jean-Paul Rouve, Vincent Macaigne, Alban Ivanov, Suzanne Clément, Judith Chemla, Eye Haidara, Benjamin Laver...

The critically-acclaimed documentary GURRUMUL, provides insight into the life and legacy of one of Australia's greatest musicians.   ​ With a voice that captured the heart of millions across the world, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was an enigmatic talent. Blind from birth, the proud Yolngu man spoke through his music. He found purpose and meaning through songs inspired by his community and country in North East Arnhem Land.  The documentary,  GURRUMUL , carries the legacy of this celebrated and important voice, and offers a rare insight into the life of the shy musician beyond the stage and the spotlight. We see a man as he traverses two "different worlds". "One world is Balanda, the other world is Yolngu," as Gurrumul describes it.   Filmed over the course of ten years, the documentary feature by Paul Williams gives us a window into the rich and complex Yolngu culture and ceremonial life, a world that informed the singer's music and voice. As Gu...

When tyrannical dictator Joseph Stalin dies in 1953, his parasitic cronies square off in a frantic power struggle to become the next Soviet leader. Among the contenders are the dweebish Georgy Malenkov, the wily Nikita Khrushchev and Lavrenti Beria -- the sadistic secret police chief. As they bumble , brawl and back-stab their way to the top, the question remains -- just who is running the government?     Review:  N.Y Times.   By   Manohla Dargis   "The laughs come in jolts and waves in “The Death of Stalin,” delivered in a brilliantly arranged mix of savage one-liners, lacerating dialogue and perfectly timed slapstick that wouldn’t be out of place in a Three Stooges bit. Turning horror into comedy is nothing new, but Mr. Iannucci’s unwavering embrace of these seemingly discordant genres as twin principles is bracing. In “The Death of Stalin,” fear is so overwhelming, so deeply embedded in everyday life that it distorts ordinary expressi...

A politician’s soiree quickly descends into farce in Sally Potter’s star-laden satire, a sharply observed study of love and politics  .  Mark Kermode, Observer film critic. " The Party"  is a richly dark social satire by Sally Potter that moves in real time in the home of uber couple Janet (Kristen Scott Thomas) and Bill (Timothy Spall), who are hosting an intimate gathering of friends to celebrate her promotion as Shadow Minister of Health. Bill, an acclaimed academic, however, is preoccupied and increasingly inebriated as he works through his old vinyl record collection, while Janet prepares food and takes calls from well- wishers. Guests start to arrive, and a wonderfully eclectic liberal and north London lot seem to be assembling. There is acerbic American, April (Patricia Clarkson) and her new age boyfriend Gottfried (Bruno Ganz); Martha (Cherry Jones) an academic colleague of Bill's and her much younger heavily pregnant wife, Jinny (Emily Mortimer), and the...

Just to be Sure Julian Wood, film critic FilmInk.  Year:   2017  Rating:   M  Director:   Carine Tardieu  Cast: François Damiens, Cecile de France, Guy Marchand, Alice de Lencquesaing  Running Time:   100 minutes  Erwan Gourmelon (François Damiens) is an unpretentious middle-aged man with the responsible if quirky job of clearing old wartime munitions from his town’s beaches. He is on good terms with his father (Guy Marchand) but has a slightly spikey relationship with his grown-up daughter Juliette (the wonderful Alice de Lencquesaing). One day, Erwan finds out, by accident, that the man he grew up with is not his biological father. This sets up a dilemma because he is fond of his old man but, at the same time, he now has this itch to know who his real father is/was.   The film is deliberately more like a Shakespearian comedy than a French farce, but director Carine Tardieu ( The Dandelions ) manages to keep ...

'Sweet Country  makes brilliant use of the Australian outback as the setting for a hard-hitting story that satisfies as a character study as well as a sociopolitical statement. '           - Rotten Tomatoes critic consensus ''Rangy and lean as a cattle dog, Warwick Thornton’s 1920s-set tale of racial tension and rough justice in Australia’s Northern Territory is an intriguing mongrel mix of cinematic bloodlines. The most obvious influence is the western. When Indigenous Australian farm worker Sam (Hamilton Morris) is forced to shoot a drunken white landowner in self-defence, he and his wife, Lizzie, (Natassia Gorey-Furber) head out into the bush, pursued by dogged lawman Sergeant Fletcher (Bryan Brown) and a posse that includes Sam’s friend and employer, Fred Smith (Sam Neill). The “decent man forced into violence” is a stalwart of the western tradition – there’s a touch of the stoic resignation of Gregory Peck in Henry King’s  The G...

​ ​ This feature-length painted animation -- the first film of its kind -- explores the life and unusual death of Vincent Van Gogh via depictions of his artworks.  Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic elements, some violence, sexual material and smoking) Genre: Animation, Drama Directed By: Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman Written By: Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, Jacek Dehnel Loving Vincent  is a beautiful curiosity.  ​ You can't take your mind off the machinery behind it to concentrate entirely on the story that it's telling. Nonetheless, it's enthralling - an artistic biography of Vincent van Gogh which knits the life and the work together with a firmness which illuminates both.   Polish writer-director Dorota Kobiela,  and her co-director, Hugh Welchman, first filmed a live-action version then had teams of painters and animators overlay it with a rendition done in van Gogh's impasto style. A sm...

​ ​ Since the arrival of the new teacher, Maria Drazdechova, to a Bratislava suburban school in the year of 1983, life has turned upside down for students and parents. The teacher's corrupted behavior and one of the students' suicide attempt that could be related to that matter, makes the school Principal call the students' parents for an urgent meeting that will suddenly put the future of all the families at stake. They are asked to sign a petition to move Miss Drazdechova out of the school. The teacher's high connections within the Communist Party makes everyone feel threatened, but at this point they have no choice but to make a decision: will they dare to go against Miss Drazdechova and stand up for what they believe in at any risk, or will they just remain silent and let things be? — LevelK.dk  IMDb

Mountain : a sublime rush of adrenaline and orchestral beauty   -    Janine Israel Australian Guardian Mountain  is an unashamed documentary tribute to adventurers who are willing to risk their lives climbing the world’s great heights. It provides astonishing vision of mountaineers, ice climbers, free soloists, speedflyers, heliskiers, snowboarders, wingsuiters and parachuting mountain bikers. The documentary examines our changing relationship to mountains and to risk-taking over the past 300 years as technology and opportunity have allowed completely new approaches to adventure. Collated from more than 2,000 hours of footage shot in 15 countries, Mountain is a 70-minute rush of adrenaline; a safari into the sublime; a vertiginous voyage to the top of the world. This masterful documentary is a cinematic and musical collaboration between the director, Jennifer Peedom and Richard Tognetti's Australian Chamber Orchestra. The score was recorded i...

​      D irector:  Asghar Farhadi Screenplay:  Asghar Farhadi Rated PG-13  f or mature thematic elements and a brief bloody image. Length:  125 minutes The film follows a couple in Tehran involved in an amateur dramatic production of Arthur Miller’s The Salesman, who are forced to move apartments following an earthquake. But the flat into which they move has an unhappy history, compounded by an unwelcome intruder. This psychological and moral drama, investigates how anger and damaged self image can drive a man to destroying the very thing he is attempting to protect - his marriage. "The acting is impeccable and the director’s skill at combining an analysis of a marriage with dramatic exterior conflict is second to none.  The Salesman  is provocative, challenging, and thoroughly gripping." David Stratton, The Australian, 4/3/2017

Pics and Flicks is beginning another great year of memorable screenings with the popular, Australian film, Ali's Wedding. After a reckless lie sets off a catastrophic chain of events, Ali, the son of a Muslim cleric, finds himself caught between his sense of duty to his family and following his heart. An irreverent and warm-hearted comedy, ALI’S WEDDING is an affectionate and entertaining story of love and duty. ​  http://www.madmanfilms.com.au/ alis-wedding/

Gerringong Pics and Flicks takes a break in January. We will be back with our first film on 2nd February, 2018, which is  Ali's Wedding . Keep an eye on this blog or the Facebook page to get more details closer to the date. In the meantime we have a little questionnaire for you. Which films did you see at  Pics and Flicks in 2017  and which ones did you like most? Click on this link and revisit all those great films from around the world! Pics and Flicks Films 2017 - questionnaire