The National Film and Sound Archive are putting together a whole bunch of classic British crime and thriller films of the 1940s, 50s and 60s for the Sydney International Film Festival, which is good news for anyone going to the SIFF.
It turns out it’s good news for Canberrans also as these films will then be shown in the Arc Cinema soon after. Arc Cinema Programmer, Quentin Turnour, is curating the films into a series called British Noir.
He is showing a range of British Noir films, in all 13 features and a variety of shorts. He says: ‘ You will notice one bias: towards the expat Australians who so often passed through British Film Noir. Curiously (in light of our ‘convict origins’) they more often found work as coppers than as crims. The series is also a chance to see the work of our first internationally acclaimed cinematographer, Robert Krasner. And of actors like John McCallum and Googie Withers; honoured here with a new print of their most famous collaboration with director Robert Hamer, on It Always Rains on a Sunday.’
The British Film Noir season will be presented at the SIFF and later at the Arc Cinema in Canberra with special thanks to the Sydney International Film Festival, BFI Distribution and the BFI National Archive. It will screen as part of the SIFF program June 5–16, then at Arc cinema in Canberra from 22 June.More detailed information about Sydney screenings can be found at the Sydney Film Festival website. For details of the Canberra program, visit the Arc Cinema page.
For further background to many of the films and filmmakers showcased in this season, go to the British Film Institute’s screenonline website.
The Noir films will screen at Canberra’s Arc Cinema at the NFSA from Saturday June 22, beginning with the classic It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), starring the much-loved Anglo-Australian actors Googie Withers and John McCallum. The film is believed by many to be their best in their English period. The Canberra season of the Noir films will run through July and August.
Also worth noting:
In addition, the Australian Indigenous music classic Wrong Side of the Road, newly restored by the NFSA, will be screened at the SIFF and will be screened later in the year at Arc. This iconic 80s film has been brought back to life frame by painstaking frame. The soundtrack, in all its reggae-infused glory, has been restored to the filmmaker’s original vision. The film follows two days in the lives of Aboriginal bands Us Mob and No Fixed Address, as they trek from Port Adelaide to Point Pearce in South Australia.
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