'As is customary for the sensible folks at Senses of Cinema, we begin the new year by looking backwards. Our annual World Poll invites authors and audiences to reflect on their cinematic highlights of the previous year. This year’s zeitgeist thermometer for the world of film catalogues submissions from Australia to Albania, Iran to Indonesia, Spain to Saudi Arabia and beyond. What emerges is a spectrum of what can constitute best practice in terms of filmmaking and film going in 2022.' (Editorial introduction)
'With just six films over thirty years (1992-2022), Baz Luhrmann and his creative and marital partner Catherin Martin have successfully created their globally marketable brand, BAZMARK, from an Australian production base, with major American studio finance and distribution. Critically, their films, including ELVIS, sharply polarize opinion unfailingly, so much so that now one expects it. Certainly, the director does so, sanguinely. ' (Introduction)
'Dubbed a “celebration of the imagination”, AFF expanded its scope in 2022 to include new venues across the city (Her Majesty’s Theatre, the Capri Theatre Goodwood), also touring films in regional sites and locations. A dedicated emphasis on youth, music and genre was evident throughout the festival’s programming: from the bone-crackling Huesera: The Bone Woman (Michelle Garza Cervera) (a great Mexican take on the ‘monstrous-feminine’) to a younger set of local Australian filmmakers who rose to the fore through their re-inventions of horror and science fiction. Across the festival, vulnerability (be it human, animal, ecological) emerged as a recurring theme. One particular animal, the humble donkey, appeared time and again in the festival’s standout international titles, calling attention to its vulnerable, creaturely presence.' (Introduction)
