Sponsored by the Australian Consulate of San Francisco

Celeste

Writer/director Ben Hackworth brings us a retired opera singer, Celeste, a star fifteen years ago who is now attempting a come-back. At forty something she is living in a crumbling paradise somewhere in the lush rainforest of north-eastern Australia. Set against this wondrous tropical backdrop, Radha Mitchell (appearing in person at Mostly British) plays the nervy diva with resplendent theatricality, mourning the death of her husband ten years earlier and finding comfort from drink and her friend/producer Grace, she prepares for the show. Enter her estranged stepson Jack (Thomas Cocquerel), no longer a teenager, but now described so eloquently by the Hollywood Reporter as “a virile slab of wayward young manhood.” Indeed, he is and tension mounts.  Enigmatic and at times mysterious, this film is always engaging, offering stunning location shots to bask in.

Australia 2018 (105 minutes)

GUEST OF HONOR: RADHA MITCHELL
Australian actress Radha Mitchell will join us at the festival with two of her new films, which she will introduce and participate in a Q & A following the screenings. She stars in “Flammable Children,” as a parent trying to raise children in the wild 1970s in Sydney. In “Celeste” she gives a touching and vulnerable performance as a renowned opera diva who gives up her career for the man she loves and moves to a rainforest. Her films “Looking for Grace” and “The Waiting City” played in the Australian Spotlight section of the Mostly British festival. The critical success of “High Art,” one of her early Hollywood movies, gained her a wider audience. She has also worked in Hollywood on “Neverland” and “Melinda and Melinda.” Woody Allen hired her as the lead character Melinda without an audition on the strength of seeing one of her movies.

GUEST OF HONOR: BEN HACKWORTH
The director of “Celeste” had an auspicious beginning as a filmmaker. His short film, “Martin Four,” made while he was in film school, was selected to show at the Cannes Film Festival. His debut feature “Corroboree” was chosen for the Toronto International by Noah Cowan, now executive director of SFFILM. Hackworth is one of three Australian directors to be awarded a prestigious Cannes Film Festival Residence to develop a screenplay. “Celeste” opened the Brisbane International Film Festival in the city where Hackworth makes his home.

Introduction to “Celeste” by Mitchell and Hackworth. Both will be interviewed following the screening by SFFILM Executive Director Noah Cowan.

6:00 PM

Friday, February 15, 2019

Playing at: Vogue Theatre

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