Perth International Arts Festival reveals In Retrospect line-up

The Perth International Arts Fest is celebrating ’60 Years of Festival Films‘ by screening eight classic pictures over the course of one big week.

The line-up of features – taken from the past six decades – was revealed last week, and they include legendary works from Yasujirô Ozu, Wim Wenders, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jane Campion, François Truffaut, as well as a controversial documentary on the life of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi.

Mark your calendars accordingly!

Monday March 5 – Tokyo Story

Yasujirô Ozu 1953 feature is considered one of the greatest films ever made, and concerns an elderly couple who travel from a small town to visit their ungrateful children in the big city. Tickets.

Tuesday March 6 – The Red Desert

Michelangelo Antonioni’s first colour picture was released in 1964, and nabbed the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It stars Monica Vitti as a woman who seeks solace from the trauma of a car accident – as well as the trauma caused by living in a desolate town – by sparking an affair with a friend. Tickets

Wednesday March 7 – Day for Night

Day for Night is François Truffaut’s comic chronicle of one filmmaker’s struggle to complete a film. Think 8 1/2 or State and Main. It won Best Foreign Language Film at the 1974 Academy Awards. Tickets.

Thursday March 8 – Wings of Desire

Before there was City of Angels (a rare Nicolas Cage film I do not endorse), there was Wim Wenders Wings of Desire, starring Bruno Ganz (Downfall) as a lonely angel who wanders round the streets of Berlin. Tickets.

Friday March 9 – The White Balloon and This Is Not A Film

Jafar Panahi won the Camera d’Or (Best First Feature) for The White Balloon at Cannes in 1995. It’s told from the perspective of a seven-year-old girl seeking lost money intended to pay for a new goldfish. The White Balloon will play in a double feature with his 2011 documentary This Is Not A Film, which Panahi made while under house arrest in Iran, and was smuggled out of the country on a USB stick… inside a cake. Tickets.

Saturday March 10 – As It Is In Heaven

A box office sensation (and the longest running film in Australian cinema history), Kay Pollak‘s Oscar-nominated As It Is In Heaven features Michael Nyqvist as a renowned conductor who retires to a small village, where he is recruited to assist the local choir. Tickets.

Sunday March 11 – An Angel at My Table

Jane Campion’s An Angel at My Table depicts the troubled life of famed New Zealand author Janet Frame. It won the Grand Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1990. Tickets.

All screenings will be held at the Somerville Outdoor Cinema in Western Australia.

Discuss: Which of these sound most appealing?