David Stratton is proud to announce the inaugural Great Britain Retro Film Festival – the first of its kind in Australia – of which he is curator and patron.
Nineteen classic British films, rarely seen on the big screen, will play in this two-week festival from August 6-19 in three premium cinemas in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
Stratton says there are many highlights to be enjoyed in this festival, not least of which is the opportunity to see some of these classic films painstakingly digitally restored and presented for the first time in Australia, in the peerless 4K format.
“I’m really excited about this retrospective film festival, particularly as I spent my first twenty years in Britain and have always been very fond of British movies. To see this collection of films, on the big screen, as they were intended to be seen, is indeed a rare pleasure”, says Stratton.
Some highlights of the inaugural Great Britain Retro Film Festival include:
Australian Premiere screenings of The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), the 4K digitally restored Powell/Pressburger classic featuring six minutes of never-before-seen footage, preceded by a 3-minute filmed introduction by Martin Scorsese who was instrumental in this breathtaking restoration.
Australian premiere screenings of The Third Man (1949), the 4K digitally restored Carol Reed masterpiece, for which Australian Robert Krasker won an Oscar® for his vivid, atmospheric black and white cinematography. This classic noir was voted the greatest British film of all time by a British Film Institute poll.
The 4K Director’s Final Cut of Lawrence of Arabia (1962), digitally restored by David Lean – David Stratton says “If ever a film demanded to be seen on a big screen, it’s David Lean’s great epic about the extraordinary career of T.E. Lawrence.
Stanley Kubrick’s digitally restored masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), “still the most visionary and challenging science fiction movie ever produced”, says David Stratton.
Nicolas Roeg’s extraordinary Don’t Look Now –named best British film ever in Time Out’s 100 Best British Films list in 2011 via a panel of critics including Sam Mendes, Wes Anderson and Sally Hawkins. David Stratton highlights the film’s ‘complex and consummate’ editing style, the work of Australian Graeme Clifford.
This Festival stands out as a richly diverse collection of cinematic gems, embracing films from one of the finest Ealing comedies; to one of the best Ivory-Merchant literary adaptations; to seminal works from auteurs Hitchcock, Lean, Roeg and Kubrick; to modern classics including Brassed Off and Slumdog Millionaire and no fewer than five classics from the esteemed Powell/Pressburger Library.
The imprint on British cinema of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger is almost without peer, and their influence on filmmakers around the world is felt even today, inspiring directors such as George Romero, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.
The First Great Britain Retro Film Festival screens August 6-19 in Sydney at the Hayden Orpheum Cremorne. Full list of films in the festival:
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) * A Man for All Seasons (1966) * A Room with a View (1986) * Black Narcissus (1947) * Brassed Off (1996) * Brief Encounter (1945) * Don’t Look Now (1973) * Gosford Park (2001) * Great Expectations (1946) * I Know Where I’m Going! (1945) * Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) * Lawrence of Arabia (1962) * Peeping Tom (1960) * Sense and Sensibility (1995) * Slumdog Millionaire (2008) * The 39 Steps (1935) * The Red Shoes (1948) * The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) * The Third Man (1949) *
For bookings and more information visit the website:- http://www.orpheum.com.au.
