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Cinema Elvire Popesco -
Saturday, March 19, 2016 - 15:00
Cinema Elvire Popesco -
Sunday, March 20, 2016 - 12:00
Written by:
Shane Danielsen
Cast:
Matilda Ridgway, Cate Wolfe, Gertraud Ingeborg, Dirk Nagel
Cinematography:
Anna Howard
Editing:
Simon Njoo
Sound:
William Ward
Producer:
Vanessa Humphrey, Raquelle David
Production:
Screen New South Wales & Hopscotch Features
Romanian Premiere
Inspired, among others, by Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, as the director himself acknowledges, Shane Danielasen’s directorial debut was selected in the official Palme d’Or competition at Cannes Film Festival 2015. The Guests, set in the Eastern Europe of the 1960's, follows Anna as she admits some uninvited guests into her home while waiting for her husband’s return. Shortly, an almost psychotic Anna is assailed by shadows and voices while pursuing a desperate quest for her baby in her own home, by now morphed into a nightmarish setting. This short film is like a fit of delirium, leaving Anna a different person than she had been at first. As for us viewers, we are confused, perhaps firghtened, but by no means unmoved. (Andreea Udrea, BIEFF)
Director:
Born in Sydney, Australia in 1967, Shane Danielsen studied Law and English Literature at the University of Sydney before working as a journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald. In 2001 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and oversaw five editions of this prestigious event before departing in September 2006 to pursue a career as a screenwriter. His first feature, Errors of the Human Body (director and co-writer Eron Sheean), premiered in 2012; his second, The World Made Straight (director: David Burris), was released in the US in January 2015. The Guests marks his directorial debut.
Festivals, awards:
-
Official Selection, Short Film Palme d’Or – 68th Festival de Cannes
- Competition – 69th Edinburgh International Film Festival
- Sydney Film Festival
- Competition – Melbourne International Film Festival
- Competition – Vladivostok International Film Festival Pacific Meridian
- Darwin International Film Festival
- Fantastic Fest, Austin Texas
- Calgary International Film Festival
- Leeds International Film Festival
- London Short Film Festival
- Sleepwalkers International Short Film Festival (Tallinn)
Director's statement:
Inspired by the films of Roman Polanski (in particular, classics of domestic horror like Repulsion and The Tenant), and by the fiction of Robert Aickman and Julio Cortazar, The Guests is a ten-minute meditation of motherhood, travel and identity, as a woman—a new mother, alone in a new city, awaiting the return of her husband—finds herself gently besieged by unexpected visitors, and forfeits her own identity in the process. Shot almost entirely in single takes, its classical mise-en-scene forgoes the typical montage-based aesthetics of genre cinema, for something more patient, remorseless and (hopefully) disquieting. (Shane Danielsen)
Inspired by the films of Roman Polanski (in particular, classics of domestic horror like Repulsion and The Tenant), and by the fiction of Robert Aickman and Julio Cortazar, The Guests is a ten-minute meditation of motherhood, travel and identity, as a woman—a new mother, alone in a new city, awaiting the return of her husband—finds herself gently besieged by unexpected visitors, and forfeits her own identity in the process. Shot almost entirely in single takes, its classical mise-en-scene forgoes the typical montage-based aesthetics of genre cinema, for something more patient, remorseless and (hopefully) disquieting. (Shane Danielsen)