Wadjda - Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) is not your typical 10-year-old girl – she’s intuitive, full of energy and individualism – with the unusual desire of owning a bike. While her father continues to provide for Wadjda and her mother, he is set to take another wife in the hopes that she will bear him a son. He splits his time between both women, which is a cause for anxiety for Wadjda’s mother. At school, Wadjda is rebellious, blatantly disobeying the strict customs that virtuous females must abide by and she has several run-ins with her upstanding headmistress. On the streets she befriends a local boy and gets herself into many unladylike situations. She swindles her classmates for cash by selling bracelets and mix tapes, hoping to buy the bike herself, eventually deciding to try and win the cash prize offered by the school Quran recitation competition. Her attention to her studies, and the memorising of the religious verses begins to change people’s perspective of her. Written and directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, graduate of the University of Sydney, Wadjda is the first film to be shot in its entirety on location in Saudi Arabia. It is also the first feature from a female Saudi filmmaker. Beautifully crafted, admirably honest and unwaveringly optimistic, Wadjda provides fascinating insight into everyday life in the nation’s capital, Riyadh, and tells a sweet and uplifting tale of the earnest belief in life’s potential and teenage independence within a strict conservative culture.
The Missing Picture - For many years, I have been looking for the missing picture: a photograph taken between 1975 and 1979 by the Khmer Rouge when they ruled over Cambodia. On its own, of course, an image cannot prove mass murder, but it gives us cause for thought, prompts us to meditate, to record History. I searched for it vainly in the archives, in old papers, in the country villages of Cambodia. Today I know: this image must be missing. I was not really looking for it; would it not be obscene and insignificant? So I created it. What I give you today is neither the picture nor the search for a unique image, but the picture of a quest: the quest that cinema allows. The Missing Picture offers very tough viewing but utilizing an impressively layered and unique cinematic language (a fusion of archival footage, hand-crafted clay figures and sets, and poetic narration) director Rithy Panh recounts a devastating period of overlooked and undocumented Cambodian history. An extraordinary amount of work has gone into the construction of this very important film. The sound design is one of many stand-out elements, but it is let down by some late wearying repetition. I haven't seen anything quite like this film, though I was working hard to keep up with the history lesson. It has a very limited release (I think it is screening in Sydney only at Dendy Newtown) but worth the journey if you're interested in challenging cinema and learning about one man's personal recreation of the atrocities that stemmed from Pol Pot's reign and the actions of the Khmer Rouge.Made in America: Directed by Ron Howard this engrossing multi-faceted documentary chronicles the 2012 debut of the Philadelphia-set “Made in America” music festival, organized and headlined by Grammy-winning hip-hop artist JAY Z (Shawn Carter). Given very little prep time before immersing himself in the energy of the musically and cultural diverse event, Howard proves his chops as a documentarian. He gives us an enlightening and entertaining backstage pass, interviewing not only the assembled roster of talented musicians but also the everyday Americans employed to cater and run the event. Through JAY Z’s personal connection to the city, we are taken around Philadelphia, and shown the sites of importance in the establishment of his towering career. There is an extraordinary range of artists admirably assembled by JAY Z for this concert – from veteran acts like Run-DMC and Pearl Jam, to alt-rock groups Passion Pit and Dirty Projectors, to hip-hop sensations Janelle Monae, Santigold and Rita Ora, to acquired tastes like Odd Future to Skrillex – who each attracted their unique audiences, but no doubt gathered some new fans.
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