CINEMA REBORN 2025 - SOME PERSONAL FAVOURITES FROM JAMES VAUGHAN, BRUCE BERESFORD and ALENA LODKINA

James Vaughan recommends our closing film THE FALL OF OTRAR.

James is a Sydney-based writer and filmmaker. His debut feature, Friends and Strangers (2021) was named in Sight and Sound as one of the 50 best films of 2021. James is a member of the Cinema Reborn Organising Committee

James writes:  “Ardak Amirkulov's breathtaking 13th century epic is also an elegy to Kazakh history, depicting the annihilation of the Islamic East Asian civilization of Otrar by the advancing armies of Genghis Khan.

“The film was co-written and produced by Russian auteur Aleksei German, but its release was disrupted by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Almost forgotten but not lost, this recent 4K restoration was completed thanks to Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation, Cineteca di Bologna and The Hobson/Lucas Foundation. Both Sydney and Melbourne screenings will be introduced by Robert Hughes, Assistant Curator, Australian Cinematheque, QAGOMA.

“The Fall of Otrar is a film of mesmerising textural richness—a cinematic Bayeux Tapestry that engulfs the viewer with hypnotic intensity. Though not for the faint-hearted, its vision of state-sanctioned terror and sadistic violence resonates with grim urgency in 2025. Do not miss a rare chance to encounter this masterpiece on the big screen.”

Bruce Beresford recommends Pépé Le Moko:

Bruce received an Academy Award nomination for the script of Breaker Morant (1980) and was nominated as Best Director for Tender Mercies (1982). Driving Miss Daisy (1989) won four Academy awards including Best Film. His most recent film is The Travellers (2024-25)

Bruce writes:"I remember my first viewing of Pépé Le Moko . Although it is a fairly familiar tale, a gangster on the run, the treatment was strikingly different to the American and English films I’d seen in this genre. The romantic story, set in the exotic Casbah in Algiers (largely reproduced in atmospheric studio sets) was dominated by the charisma of Jean Gabin in the eponymous role…Duvivier’s deft visual handling of long dialogue scenes was a delight. I realised, all those years ago, that a real director has to choreograph the movements of his cast and choices of camera positions and lenses, just as dancing and fight scenes have to be meticulously planned. To explain – it’s often apparent to me, when I watch feature films or the now ubiquitous streaming series, that the director simply lets the actors work out a few moves as they deliver the dialogue; then the cameraman films the sequence in one or two wide shots, followed with close ups on the principle players. This mass of footage is turned over to the film editor and it will invariably result in a moderately effective scene. However, Duvivier (along with directors such as Jean Renoir, Martin Scorsese, Carol Reed, Luis Buñuel and quite a few others) evaluates every scene in the film for its place in the completed work, not as a sequence unrelated dramatically to what follows and precedes it.”

Alena Lodkina recommends The Sacrifice

Alena wrote and directed the feature films, Strange Colours (2017) and Petrol (2022), which screened Venice, Locarno, New Directors/New Films, MIFF and the Sydney Film Festival. 

Alena writes: “There is a diary-like quality to The Sacrifice.The camera careens through an alien, hostile world in a desperate attempt to find connections. There is no truth, Alexander despairs, and aTV soon announces the coming of a nuclear holocaust. The dead tree erected on Alexander’s whimsy and watered by his son Gossen (the Little Man) suggests it’s got more to do with innocence and faith.This deranged watering is crucially not Sisyphean, for we are asked to consider the possibility of miracles, that the tree really may bloom. An inversion, I think, of one ofAlexander’s other grandiose statements:there isn’t death, there is only fear of death. We can hear an echo of Tarkovsky’s poet father Arseny, as quoted in Mirror: ‘don’t be afraid of death’. Like the protagonist of Solaris, the son returns to the father, literal, artistic and metaphysical

Notes by Bruce and Alena are short extracts from essays to appear in the Cinema Reborn printed catalogue. For details of screening times, program notes and links to bookings in both cities click on this link for the Cinema Reborn website. https://cinemareborn.com.au/