Alzheimer’s disease was memorably portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in The Father, for which he won an Oscar. This new poignant drama explores the bewildering fact that sufferers can experience momentary reprieves. In a deeply-felt performance, Noni Hazlehurst (the matriarch on the sophisticated Australian soap opera A Place to Call Home) plays June Wilton, a victim of dementia who was once the formidable mother of two adult children but now can no longer remember them. Family ties are explored when she unexpectedly inserts herself back into the lives of her estranged loved ones and attempts to make improvements. Australia 2019 (99 minutes)

Sponsor: Australian Consulate General San Francisco

Academy Award nominated director Stephen Daldry’s (The Hours, Billy Elliot) unique comedy is a hilarious and heartbreaking story that intimately shows two partners forced to reevaluate themselves and their relationship through the reality of the 2020 lockdown, while finding a way to survive as a family. A dream showcase for stars James McAvoy (X-Men, The Last King of Scotland) and Sharon Horgan (TV’s Catastrophe and This Way Up), each delivering performances that rank among their very best.

“A tour de force of writing and acting” -The Guardian

“Unflinching and very funny” – The Independent

UK, 2021 (92 minutes)

David Gulpilil was Australia’s most acclaimed Indigenous actor, debuting in Walkabout in 1971 as a lone youth wandering the Outback as part of a tribal rite of passage. He gained a wide audience in Crocodile Dundee. It is an honor to present the U.S. premiere of the award-winning documentary of this actor’s extraordinary life, made more poignant by his death in November. For Gulpilil, who had inoperable lung cancer but lived for years past a dire diagnosis, the film – winner of Best Documentary from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts–is his fond farewell and valediction.  The Sydney Morning Herald calls it “unbearably moving and utterly engaging,” and The Guardian says it is “sublime, humane and elegant” and “rises to the challenge of doing justice to the extraordinary.” Australia 2021 (101 minutes)

Sponsor: Australian Consulate General San Francisco

One of the hottest psycho-sexual thrillers you are likely to see, True Things succeeds in large part because of superlative casting. Ruth Wilson and Tom Burke make you believe that their characters fall under an instant erotic spell because the actors reenact familiar roles –Wilson in The Affair and Burke in the The Souvenir. In their latest outing here they meet across a government desk, where she doles out benefits to ex-cons like him. She risks her job and the life she’s made to plunge headlong into a carnal relationship with an obviously inappropriate lover. The film explores whether sexual gratification is worth it. UK 2021 (102 minutes)

A black comedy set in a working-class Dublin hair salon where the stylists become accidental vigilantes and community heroes as they take on the gang members and gentrifiers threatening their community, Deadly Cuts is ridiculously, deliciously over-the-top. It zips right along with zingy one-liners and features some outrageously camp performances that add to the infectious fun. Rachel Carey directs this brash, bold and boisterous comedy– the kind that’s hard to come by (and just what you may be looking for!). Ireland 2021 (90 minutes)

Presented in partnership with Consulate General of Ireland, San Francisco and SF Irish Film

A wayward young man and his estranged father rebuild their bond as they journey to Ireland to scatter the ashes of their mother and wife. Frank (Oscar and Golden Globe nominee John Hawkes) isn’t the father he should have been. Sean (Logan Lerman) isn’t the son he should have been. With plenty of unresolved issues, the journey becomes a lot more than father and son had bargained for. A beautifully observed story from director Elfar Adalsteins; emotionally raw and rich with deeply affecting moments. End of Sentence is much more than a traditional road film. Ireland/Iceland/USA. 2019 (96 minutes)

Presented in partnership with Consulate General of Ireland, San Francisco and SF Irish Film

A Dublin-set drama from director Phyllida Lloyd (Mama Mia!, The Iron Lady), Herself is the empowering story of a battered wife (actor/screenwriter Claire Dunne) who finds the grit to leave her husband, navigate the realities of homelessness and reclaim a stable life for herself and her children. An inspiring portrait of a determined survivor who, against the odds, literally builds her own house, finding a true home among the decent folks who come to her aid along the way. Ireland/UK 2020 (97 minutes)

Presented in partnership with Consulate General of Ireland, San Francisco and SF Irish Film

This forceful debut feature from Cathy Brady frames a raw domestic drama against the backdrop of an Irish community bearing the scars of The Troubles. The story of two sisters who grew up on the fractious border, inseparable as children then torn apart after family tragedy set them on wildly different paths. When one of them, missing for years, suddenly returns home, frayed at the edges, their intense bond is re-ignited. Together, they unearth their late mother’s past and their family’s generational trauma, uncovering deeply buried secrets and reaffirming an inalienable bond as sisters never to be broken again. Winner Best Debut Screenwriter Cathy Brady, British Independent Film Awards. Ireland/UK 2020 (85 minutes)

Presented in partnership with Consulate General of Ireland, San Francisco and SF Irish Film

Hollywood quickly learned that grumpy old men can be funny onscreen. Now the Australians have taken this knowledge a step further in the touching comedy Never Too Late. A group of former Vietnam POWs who escaped their captors now find themselves unhappily contained in the Hogan Hills Retirement Home for Returned Veterans. Known as the Chain Breakers for their exploits in the war, the men figure breaking out of a nursing home should be a walk in the park by comparison. Only then can they fulfill their unrealized dreams. For James Cromwell’s character that means reconnecting with the love of his life (Jacki Weaver). 2020 Australia (95 minutes)

Sponsor: Australian Consulate General San Francisco