Green Room: Film Festival sneak peek, winning words
SA arts & culture news in brief: Adelaide Film Festival’s second reveal, the ‘alternative’ Archibald show comes to town, local poet wins $20,000 literary prize, talent sought for Festival Centre show, SALA’s 2024 winners, and Tarnanthi Art Fair to return online.
Film Festival’s second reveal
The new road-trip movie With or Without You – written and directed by South Australian Kelly Schilling and starring Marta Dusseldorp – will have its world premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival next month.
One of several films announced this week in the second “sneak peek” at the program ahead of its full launch on September 17, With or Without You is said to be inspired by Schilling’s own experiences and tells the story of a young woman (played by Melina Vidler), her alcoholic mother (Dusseldorp) and a West African man (Albert Mwangi) who are thrown together on an unexpected road trip. The three lead actors and director will be guests at the screening of the AFF Investment Fund film.
Screening at the opening-weekend gala on October 25 will be the French musical crime comedy Emilia Pérez, whose ensemble cast (including Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña) won the best actress prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and Palme d’Or prize-winning romantic comedy Anora, which is described as a reimagining of Pretty Woman.
The 2024 Adelaide Film Festival will run from October 23 until November 4 and open with The Correspondent, an adaptation of Peter Greste’s memoir about his arrest in Egypt in 2013, with Richard Roxburgh starring as the Australian war correspondent. (Read more about The Correspondent and other films in the festival’s first announcement here.)
Native Rage wins flagship literary prize
Dominic Guerrera. Photo: Jake BrusnahanSouth Australian poet and writer Dominic Guerrera has won one of the flagship prizes in the 2024 Queensland Literary Awards for his poetry manuscript Native Rage.
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Guerrera – a Ngarrindjeri, Kaurna and Italian person who is First Nations editor at Cordite Poetry Review and a member of the advisory committee for new SA literary journal Splinter – was awarded the David Unaipon Award for an emerging Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writer. It comes with a $20,000 prize, plus publication with University of Queensland Press.
“This beautifully realised poetry collection travels from cutting reflections on First Nations sovereignty and racism to unrequited love and family connections,” the judges said of Native Rage.
“Poignant poems of ordinary Blak life add vulnerability and tenderness. A very impressive entry from a Nunga man with fire in his belly and a passionate vision for his people.”
The top prize in the awards announced on Thursday night – the $30,000 Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance – went to Melissa Lucashenko for her novel Edenglassie, a novel that spans Aboriginal lives five generations apart. Lucashenko won the same prize in 2019 with her previous novel, Too Much Lip.
‘Exhibition of Rejects’
They may not have made the final selection for the Archibald or Wynne prizes, but the 60 artworks on show in the 2024 touring Salon des Refusés exhibition are a must-see for art enthusiasts and collectors, according to David Roche Gallery director Robert Reason.
The Salon des Refusés (that’s French for “exhibition of rejects”) opens at the North Adelaide gallery today (Friday) after coming direct from Sydney’s S.H. Ervin Gallery, which initiated the Salon in 1992. Each year the S.H. Ervin panel goes behind the scenes of the two exhibitions and makes its “alternative” selection from the hundreds of entries based on “quality, diversity, humour and experimentation”.
The 2024 exhibition, which will be at the David Roche Gallery until October 26, comprises 38 portraits entered for the Archibald Prize and 22 landscapes from the Wynne Prize.
“The exhibition is a wonderful opportunity to see a broad range of national artists that come together to celebrate portraiture and landscape painting,” says Reason.
SALA’s night of shining lights
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Sue Kneebone was named as the 2025 SALA feature artist at an event last weekend which also saw the presentation of a range of awards recognising the achievements of both emerging and experienced South Australian artists.
An interdisciplinary visual artist, Kneebone creates mixed media and moving-image works. She will be the subject of the 2025 SALA publication to be written by Andrew Purvis, Nicole Clift, and James Tylor.
Among the major winners in the 2024 SALA awards were Alyssa Powell-Ascura, whose Halo-halo multi-sensory exhibition at The Mill won the City of Adelaide Award; Oakey, who won the Contemporary Art Award for the work PORTAL, and Catherine Fitz-Gerald, who received the Digital Media Award for her audio-described work If Fabrics Could Speak. The full list of winners and finalists can be found here.
“Judging panels for this year’s SALA Awards were blessed and challenged by the depth of talent, skills, and originality across the finalists in all categories,” says SALA acting CEO Bridget Alfred. “The diversity was breathtaking, with established artists with decades of experience and exceptional skill sitting alongside exciting, raw, and emerging voices.”
Who’s got talent?
Former Students Got Talent performer Marcel Raab. Photo: Kelly CarpenterIf you’re a tertiary student and you’ve got a talent – be it singing, dancing, rapping, stand-up or even rollerblading – the Adelaide Festival Centre wants to hear from you.
The callout (here) has opened for the centre’s annual Students Got Talent show, which will be hosted by comedian and radio presenter Jason Chong at the Dunstan Playhouse on December 7. It’s open to both local and international tertiary students aged 18 and over, with up to $2000 in prize money up for grabs alongside the chance to perform live.
The Festival Centre says previous Students Got Talent participants have gone on to perform at OzAsia Festival’s Lucky Beats stage in Elder Park, Festival Plaza events and StudyAdelaide’s Student Fest.
Tarnanthi Art Fair back online
The Tarnanthi Art Fair will return from October 18 to 21 as an online-only event.
The Art Gallery of SA, which presents Tarnanthi, says thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists from more than 50 arts centres across Australia will offer works for sale via the Tarnanthi Art Fair digital platform, including paintings, ceramics, sculpture, woven objects, jewellery, textiles, clothes and homewares.
All money from sales goes to the artists via their art centres, with sales totalling more than $8.1 million since the first fair in 2015. Last year it was presented as part of the biennial Tarnathi Festival with both an online portal and an in-person fair at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre where art lovers could buy works direct from artists.
“Following record-breaking outcomes in 2023, we are thrilled that the highly anticipated Tarnanthi Art Fair will return online in 2024 to reach audiences around the world and help foster a deeper understanding of First Nations art and culture,” Emma Fey, AGSA acting director, said in a statement this week.
Green Room is a regular column for InReview, providing quick news for people interested, or involved, in South Australian arts and culture. Get in touch by emailing us at [email protected]