Cirrus@Austlit

'RUNT is a heartfelt and hilarious contemporary Australian family feature film, set in the country town of Upson Downs. It tells the story of eleven-year-old Annie Shearer and her best friend, an adopted stray dog called Runt, who try to save their family farm by competing in the Agility Course Grand Championships at the prestigious Krumpets Dog Show in London. Annie lives on the struggling sheep farm with her brother Max, her parents Bryan and Susie, and Annie’s grandma Dolly.'

Source: Screenwest.

'June (Hazlehurst) is living in a care facility and frequently visited by family and friends. Her days roll by as a blur of memories and snapshot moments, until one morning she wakes up and has a rare flash of lucidity. June can communicate capably, recognise her family and friends, and identify numerous everyday objects. Convinced she is in the wrong place, June sets about escaping and re-connecting with her family. However, all is not as it seems, and a great deal has changed in five years.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Breaking Bad’s RJ Mitte stars in this charming Australian rom-com about a loner with cerebral palsy who is roped into helping a comedian (Philippa Northeast) overcome her shyness.

'Mitte, who has cerebral palsy in real life, gives a winning performance as Travis, a young man living in a ramshackle Sydney rental whose disability contributes to his social isolation and anger management issues. When he loses his maintenance job after lashing out at bullies, Travis ends up in a pub, where he puts his withering sarcasm to good use defending Sunny – a reluctant up-and-comer on the comedy circuit – from a sexist heckler. Soon Mikey (Sam Reid), the pub's owner and Sunny's overbearing boyfriend, hires Travis to help train Sunny in the art of the comeback, and naturally sparks ensue – along with romance and laughs aplenty. Standing Up for Sunny is a lively comedy with plenty to say about living with disability and discrimination.'

Source: Sydney Film Festival.

'Jack (14) is a charismatic larrikin who has just discovered the one thing he is really good at - go-kart racing. With the support of his mentor, Patrick (55), an old race car driver with a secret past, and his best mates Colin and Mandy (both 15), Jack must learn to control his recklessness if he is to defeat the best drivers in Australia, including the ruthless champion Dean, and win the National title.'

Source: Screen Australia.

'Godfrey (30s), highly autistic, lives with his Indigenous adoptive-brother David. Their precarious domestic balance is destabilised when physiotherapist Annie arrives in town.'

Source: Screen Australia funding approvals.

'While Knuck (screenwriter Nable, known in North America for his role on the series Arrow) has been in prison, his surrogate son, Mark, nicknamed "Paddo" (the charismatic Ryan Corr, Hacksaw Ridge) has minded the store. Paddo has modernized the activities of the club, expanded their enterprise, and brought in new members — all endeavours that threaten Knuck's position on his return. Both men are supported and influenced by their equally strong wives, each woman as rabidly ambitious for her husband as for herself. Tensions mount when Paddo's younger brother, Skink (Josh McConville), creates a problem for the club, and Paddo must choose between familial devotion or loyalty to Knuck and the club he heads.'

Source: Toronto International Film Festival (http://www.tiff.net/tiff/1/). (Sighted: 13/09/2017)

'OtherLife is a revolutionary new drug invented by Ren Amari (Jessica de Gouw). It expands the brain's sense of time and creates virtual reality directly in the user's mind. With OtherLife, mere seconds in real life can feel like hours or days of exciting adventures. Ren hopes to use this miraculous technology to heal her comatose brother, but there are other more secretive plans afoot, like selling OtherLife technology to governments wishing to solve prison overcrowding by imprisoning criminals in virtual cells: a use that Ren adamantly opposes.'

Source: Sydney Film Festival blurb (http://tix.sff.org.au/html/s_OtherLife.htm). (Sighted: 17/05/2017)

'Based on Tim Winton’s award-winning novel set in mid-70s coastal Australia. Two teenage boys, hungry for discovery, form an unlikely bond with a reclusive surfer and his mysterious wife. The boys are driven to take risks that will have a profound and lasting impact on their lives.'

Source: Screen Australia.

Senior clinical psychologist, Peter Bower’s life is in turmoil when he discovers that all his patients are actually ghosts. Upon further investigation he discovers they all died on the same day. In a spine tingling, supernatural thriller, in the vein of The Sixth Sense and What Lies Beneath, Peter travels back to his past to confront a secret he has kept for 20 years.'

(Source: Screen Australia)

'An outwardly happy Australian couple, Ben and Fiona, journey to Calcutta, India to collect their adopted baby, but on arrival find that the arrangements at the agency have yet to be finalised. They have no option but to wait in this chaotic, foreign place. But as the intoxicating mystic powers of the Indian city pulls them in each separate and unexpected directions, the vulnerability of their marriage begins to reveal itself.

'Forced to confront their differences and the concealed deep secrets that they've both been long avoiding, Ben and Fiona ultimately rediscover themselves and a belief in life's possibilities, their marriage and the invigorating power and joy of the human spirit.'

Source: The Waiting City website, http://www.thewaitingcity.com.au/
Sighted: 07/07/2010