Revelation Film Festival first highlights revealed
Revelation Perth International Film Festival is back for its 26th year in 2023, screening at Luna Cinemas Leederville from Wednesday, July 12 to Sunday, July 16.
The festival has just released the first highlights of this year’s programme, which has been condensed into five days.
“We’re loving the ability to deliver a more compact and modular event – it’s of the time,” said Festival Director Richard Sowada.
“Compressing the event into five days with the same amount of films as before and following it on with four days of WA’s major VR, games and immersive technology event (XR:WA), builds a phenomenal critical mass across all screen-based media forms. It brings together these converging sectors, highlights new career opportunities and, unlike any film fest in the country, opens new ways of thinking about their relationships and what a screen-based festival can be.”
Opening the Festival on Wednesday, July 12 is US crime drama Devil’s Peak (pictured above) – from Perth director, and Revelation Ambassador, Ben Young (Hounds of Love, Extinction). Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Robin Wright, Hopper Penn and Emma Booth and set in North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains, the screen adaptation of David Joy’s novel titled Where All Light Tends To Go follows eighteen-year-old Jacob McNeely who is torn between his meth-dealing kingpin father and leaving the mountains forever with the girl he loves.
Another highlight is the WA premiere of Canadian comedy drama I Like Movies; the debut feature from director Chandler Levack. Set in the early 2000s, the film stars Isaiah Lehtinen as Lawrence Kweller, a socially inept movie-obsessed 17-year-old who gets a job in a video store where he forms a complicated relationship with his older female manager.
Rev then invites us to witness the psychotropic spectacle of American politics from 2016 – 2021 with Hello Dankness; the latest sample-based experimental film from New York based Australian siblings Dan and Dominique Angeloro, the artist duo also known as Soda Jerk. A political fable disguised as a stoner musical comprised entirely of hundreds of pirated film samples, this is part political satire, part zombie stoner film and part Greek tragedy – a record of the time, written from the time.
Living up to Rev’s reputation for showcasing cutting edge documentaries is Manifesto; a found footage film comprised entirely of often-shocking videos uploaded by Russian teenagers to social media platforms. The presumably pseudonymous filmmaker Angie Vinchito has taken considerable risk with this dark, disturbing portrait of school life that shows how aggression and oppression are unwittingly passed on to the next generation.
Rev celebrates local filmmaking micro-budget triumphs with the World premiere screening of Frank and Frank from Albany writer/director Adam Morris (Edward and Isabella); a bromance movie starring Myles Pollard and Trevor Jamieson filmed on location in Albany and Mt Barker, Western Australia.
The 2023 programme also features the return of Rev’s International Family Animation Explosion; a specially curated collection of family friendly international short animations from all corners of the globe that are perfect for all ages – including those who have never been to the movies before. Tickets are free for kids up to 16 and just $10 for adults.
Also making up the programme, Westralia Day shines a light on locally made films on Saturday, July 15 at The Backlot, and the Festival closes with the annual celebration of WA’s talented emerging filmmakers at the popular Get Your Shorts On! and City Of Vincent Film Project special event on Sunday, July 16.
Revelation Perth International Film Festival hits Luna Cinemas Leederville from Wednesday, July 12 to Sunday, July 16, 2023. The full programme will be revealed early June. For more info and to buy tickets, head to revelationfilmfest.org