Brisbane 2008

The St. George Bank Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF) focuses on films from the Asia-Pacific region since its start in 1992. It grew into a big festival with a lot of interesting sidebars and three international juries. The program includes feature, documentaries, shorts, experimental films and retrospectives. This year's retrospectives dealt with "Ozploitation", "Resistance and Terrorism", and presented films by French director Olivier Assayas. Special focuses on films from Great Britain, on music films, horror films, directors from Thailand and of course from Australia were other highlights. Films on filmmaking were shown in the documentary section. In panels, film critics and other experts were discussing themes such as resistance and terrorism, cinema and politics (with American documentary director Morgan Spurlock) and the history of the Australian genre cinema.
    Brisbane is a metropolis with two and a half million residents on the northeast coast of the continent and is Australia's most rapidly growing city; the festival's audience consists of young and multi-cultural people. (Andrea Dittgen)

The FIPRESCI prize went to Good Cats (Hao mao) by Ying Liang (China, 2008). Details
Brisbane International Film Festival (July 31 — August 10, 2008), www.stgeorgebiff.com.au

Reports

War on Terror. In part consciously programmed, but also simply the result of what new productions from around the world are preoccupied with, the subject of terrorism was a prevalent one in the more than 100 films presented, states Bodo Fründt. More
The Enigma of Gesture. Adrian Martin was aware that a sudden crying burst out everywhere during the festival — at least on the screen — leaving an element of enigma and a discrepancy we cannot measure or entirely decipher. More

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