the Curb

Eya’s (Safa Gharbaoui) world as a 12-year-old Belgian Tunisian is filled with warmth and humour. She’s considered the welcome extension of her older brother Younès (Mehdi Bouziane) whose friends treat her like a part of their family. She loves viral dance moves, French rap, football, and riding on the back of Younès’ motorcycle. She’s bright and happy, especially when she’s included in Younès circ...

Debut Australian director Amy Wang’s twisted satire Slanted sees an aspiring prom queen undergo radical surgery to change her race. This is a film that's been called Mean Girls by way of The Substance . Nadine Whitney caught up with Amy Wang to talk about the process of getting her feature film debut off the ground, what it means to be an Australian filmmaker working right now, and the themes of t...

Dreams, imagination and sobering realities meld in this absolutely magical debut, in which a young girl must decide whether to leave her volcanic island home. The island of Fogo, Cape Verde is singular in its beauty. Drylands give way to black-sand beaches, while villagers gather in intimately cluttered homes. Director Denise Fernandes’ attention to lyrical detail highlights the profound love that...

Abebe Butterfly Song is a documentary that starts as a narrative exploration of Melbourne musician David Bridie, best known for his work in bands like Not Drowning, Waving and My Friend the Chocolate Cake, but then folds in his life-changing experience of travelling to Papua New Guinea and meeting musician George Telek and the Moab Stringband. The film then takes audiences through a journey of dis...

Co-directors Richard Moore and John Doggett Williams invite audiences into the space of pain, discomfort, and body exploration with their searing, curiously tender, and wonderfully life-enriching documentary Stelarc Suspending Disbelief . This occasionally profound experience follows performance artist Stelarc , a Cyprus-born Australian artist who was raised in the suburbs of Melbourne and found a...

On this episode of physical media reviews, Nadine Whitney & Andrew F Peirce delve into some of the major releases from Umbrella Entertainment. They kick off the discussion looking at Jamie Blanks Ozploitation throw back gorno flick Storm Warning , before taking a darker dive into the mammoth New Extremity Collection which features High Tension , Anatomy of Hell , Frontier(s) , and Martyrs . Fi...

On this episode of the Curb review podcast, Nadine Whitney takes us deep into the realm of fighting flamethrowers with the oddly titled From the World of John Wick: Ballerina , before whisking us away into the land of dragon fantasy with the live-action spin on How to Train Your Dragon , before she takes Andrew to a remote shark expedition in Queensland with Dangerous Animals . Follow us on ...

Daniel Bibby's short film Half Past Midnight follows two strangers - Harper (Miah Madden) and Marcus (Mitchell Bourke) - who meet in a cinema and decide to head out for drinks after the screening. In the bar, their relationship is revealed to be something more, something where romance once flourished, a romance that is now withering, yet for both Harper and Marcus, it feels as if it's still in rea...

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Harley Hefford and Luke Thomas are two thirtysomething Naarm-Melbourne based creatives who have a background in events, festivals, and bars. Their latest endeavour is an art community spread over ten floors in a new creative space in Collingwood located in the iconic Easey's building, best known for the train carriages that sit on its rooftop.  In the following chat, Harley and Luke talk abou...

As I tell Gabrielle in the following interview, when a new Gabrielle Brady film emerges into the world, it is like the arrival of a gift, one that pulls us into a mindset of considering the lives of others, including those of the crabs of Christmas Island, or maybe the horses of the Gobi Desert. It's one that encourages us to see the world of truth differently. That notion of truth is something I'...

Zoe Pepper mines the generational wealth divide for all its worth in the acidic WA-made comedy Birthright . Cory (a perfectly cast deadpan Travis Jeffery) and his very pregnant wife Jasmine (an equally deadpan and delightful Maria Angelico) are getting the shaft from their rental. Stuffed in more ways than one, they load up all they can into the boot of their car and trundle off to the sanctuary o...

Judith Hancock has always felt that was different from her siblings. Having spent her youth in boarding schools, Judith felt disconnected from her family in more ways than just distance. When she returned home from boarding school, she spent most of her time with children from an orphanage where her father worked. Judith felt other aspects of difference in her family that caused her to wonder whet...

I remember sitting in the Mercury at the Adelaide Film Festival and watching Unspoken and getting to see a rare talent emerge on screen in the form of Kat Dominis. Her lead performance left me moved, shaken, and stunned by the depth of emotions she presented on screen. As the credits rolled, I saw she was the co-writer of this award-winning short film, a credit she shares with Mariana Rudan and di...

Amalie Atkins loving documentary Agatha's Almanac follows Agatha Bock, Amalie's aunt, as she lives her life on a farm in southern Manitoba, tending to the vegetables, beans, and the soil. She preserves the heirloom seeds she has nurtured and maintained for decades, connecting her to her families past, and tenderly supporting herself using traditional methods. Agatha is also 90 years old, with her...

Queensland: Beautiful one day, deadly the next! For American drifter Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) the gorgeous Gold Coast supplies her with great surfing and anonymity where she can leave her dark past behind. For psychopathic fisherman Tucker (Jai Courtney) the ocean provides him with a living, but his real interest lie in dying: the death of those he reels on to his boat to feed the sharks. Sean Byr...

Director Justin Kurzel has crafted a filmography built on exploring the impact of trauma and violence on a nation. Whether it be his excoriating debut film Snowtown or the acts of cautionary storytelling with Nitram and The Order , Kurzel’s work questions how violence and trauma lingers in our bodies, our minds, and in our lands. That’s a notion that he explores with impressive strength with his f...

There's a delirious level of dark comedy that thrives in the new short film DIY from director Tony Gardiner and writer Lachlan Marks. A woman, played with a disarming ease by Claire Lovering, is mourning the passing of her dog. As she drills into the wall to hang up a picture of her pup, she is surprised to find blood coming out of the hole. Heading to the other side of the wall, she finds the dea...

Chad Freidrichs is a documentarian who has crafted a filmography built with a series of fringe stories that unveil fascinating narratives that exist just outside the periphery of normalcy. His first feature doc, Jandek on Corwood , sees a reclusive folk and blues musician gain a following, all the while he never truly engages with his followers fascination with his work. In 2011, Chad crafted the...

Part of why Coming & Going feels like a quiet revolution of a film is the manner that Andy presents vulnerability, loneliness, and tenderness on screen. 'Baby, you are gonna miss that plane' is what Julie Delpy said to Ethan Hawke as she danced in the climax of Before Sunset , creating one of cinemas finest romantic moments. Andy pulls from the echo of that scene, creating the pivotal moment w...

Matthew Rankin is a Canadian filmmaker who hails from Winnipeg, Manitoba. His work, which includes the acclaimed award-winning 2019 feature The Twentieth Century , has often been called 'experimental' or a slice of 'absurdist comedy'. That's partially true, but I'd go a step further and say that there's a touch of humanist storytelling to his work, one that's crafted from a globalist perspective....

Isabella Tree is a noted conservationist and the author of the acclaimed book Wilding , which tells the story of Isabella and her husband as they undertook the immense and impressive journey to rewild their failing four-hundred-year-old estate in England, bringing beavers and cranes back to the country for the first time in years. Wilding , alongside the work of fellow conservationist Derek Gow, a...

Co-writer and actor Archie Lush, director Alex Power, and producer Mark Zanosov take us to the streets of Fremantle, Western Australia, where their short film Blunt pushes us into the simmering heat of the kitchen. Under the spatter of duck fat and the glint of sharp knives is the mounting pressure of being a top tier chef, a notion that's amplified by Archie Lush's emerging culinary creative need...

Nadine Whitney had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Karan Kandhari and Radhika Apte about Sister Midnight and how as original and ‘weird’ as it is, it’s also representative of people who are rarely seen as (essential) inhabitants of Mumbai. Both Karan and Radhika are an absolute joy to listen to.   Kandhari’s film is a marvel of inventiveness. The work itself breaks the rules of w...

Genevieve Bailey is a documentarian who has drawn attention to the impact of societal struggles with mental illness through her empathetic and nurturing body of work. With feature films like I Am Eleven and Happy Sad Man, Gen embraces a supportive mindset, using the power of cinema to bring real stories to audiences. It's that sense of support that is keenly felt in her latest documentary, Always...