Focus On Girls 24/7
Friday 3 July-12

­The films brought together in Focus on Girls 24/7 are stylistically brazen, each signaling a unique creative vision behind the lens. The contradictory impulses of the modern woman are rendered on screen in bold, unfettered performances from the leading actresses. Seen collectively, these films raise questions about the attainability of personal and social freedom in an era when 'liberation' was the main prize. Seen apart, each film is an enduring classic from one of the most vital eras in the history of cinema.
Fri 3 Jul 7.15pm
Introduced by Sydney Film Festival director and curator of the season, Clare Stewart

Cleo From 5 To 7 unclassified 18+
Agnes Varda, 90 mins, France/Italy, 1962, 35mm, French with english subtitles. Courtesy: CNC/Cin�© Tamaris

Cleo, a deliciously frothy chanteuse, kills a couple of hours on the streets of Paris, banters with her maid, jams with fellow musicians and bickers with her older lover all the while waiting to receive test results for cancer. Romance blossoms at her most despairing moment and everything that seemed terminal suddenly begins to breathe again. Blending her keen documentary shooting style with pop aesthetics and editing techniques that would come to define the French New Wave, Varda turns her portrait of a ditzy ingenue inside-out, revealing a more complex character than the pretty, pampered surfaces imply. New print.

First Look
Thu 2 Jul 7pm, Fri 3 Jul 7pm, Sat 4 Jul 7pm, Sun 5 Jul 5.30pm
Beautiful Losers unclassified 18+
Aaron Rose and Joshua Land, 90 mins, USA, 2008, Digital Betacam.
Courtesy: Madman Cinema
Beautiful Losers charts the rise and rise of a group of multi-disciplinary artists including influential street artist Shepard Fairey (Obey) and filmmakers Harmony Korine and Mike Mills. All self-proclaimed 'outsiders' this loose-knit group drew inspiration from the rich sub-cultural veins of skateboarding, graffiti, surfing, hip hop and punk, finding an outlet for their creations in the early 1990s at Aaron Rose's storefront gallery 'Alleged'. Scored by Money Mark and imbued with a vibrant mix of historical footage and contemporary interviews, Rose and Land's documentary about these artists' shared histories, journeys from obscurity and energetic DIY ethos makes for inspirational cinema.

Australian Perspectives
Sat 4 Jul 4pm
Lucky Country MA15+
Kriv Stenders, Australia, 2009, 35mm. Source: Footprint Films
Directed by Kriv Stenders, (Boxing Day, Blacktown) Lucky Country is a period western in which Aden Young stars as Nat, a small landholder barely hanging on to his patch of the bush. His daughter Sarah (Hanna Mangan Lawrence, Acolytes) is just old enough to see herself as a woman, his son Tom just old enough to judge his father as a man. When three ex-soldiers arrive amidst rumours of gold, the group begins to turn on each other, and the cabin becomes a battleground. Screens as part of NAIDOC week.