AUSTRALIAN SHORT FILM TODAY returned to Paris on 26 June 2018 with a 100-minute program of short films led by a dual French/English language film, LA LICORNE / THE UNICORN, shot in Paris and directed by French-Australian actress/director Chloé Boreham. The film stars César Award nominee Paul Hamy, Boreham and South Australian School of Art nominee Sam Dugmore. In the film, the characters Sophie and Christophe are on the verge of making love when they are interrupted by a phone call that sends their night into disarray.

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Legendary Australian filmmaker Jane Campion agreed to us showing a retrospective of her 1982 student film, AN EXERCISE IN DISCIPLINE: PEEL, in which a boy is disciplined for throwing orange peels out of the window of his father's car. PEEL won the Palme d'Or for best short film at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986. Jane followed up this award when her feature film, THE PIANO, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1993. The recently remastered version of Peel  is courtesy of Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) in Sydney, where Jane made the film as a student. "Peel is joyously experimental, infused with the stubbornness of its characters" - Kate Matthews.

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Among the other films in the 2018 program are: THE ELEVEN O'CLOCK, an Australian film nominated for an Academy Award this year, a comedy in which a psychiatrist's patient thinks he is the psychiatrist; ADELE, a drama in which 14-year old African schoolgirl in Australia is in an arranged marriage imposed on her by family tradition; KILL OFF, a comedy/drama in which a girl with an intellectual disability forms un unusual friendship with an Sudanese man based on their shared interest in rap music: LOST PROPERTY OFFICE, a stop-motion animation in which Ed, the custodian, seems as lost as the items he is looking after; WELCOME HOME ALLEN, a poignant film in which a group of Viking warriors returns home to a world that may no longer recognise them; HICCUP, a 3-minute comedy: and LIBRARY OF LOVE, a musical romantic comedy about a librarian who spends her days reading too many romance novels.

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The screening took place at the Australian Embassy's theatre at 4, rue Jean Rey.

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The Australian Ambassador to France, Brendan Berne, hosted the evening.

 

There was a Q&A after the screening with Sam Dugmore, an actor from LA LICORNE, and Maya Kavanagh, co-producer of LIBRARY OF LOVE.

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The 2018 Audience Award at Australian Short Film Today in New York went to THE ELEVEN O'CLOCK by Derin Seale. The film was produced by Finch in Sydney.