Antenna Documentary Film Festival 2018

Overview

Heading to the cinema is usually an act of escapism, but the Antenna Documentary Film Festival isn't avoiding life's woes. The Sydney-based event dedicates its six-day, 48-movie program to true tales from around the world. Running from Tuesday, October 9 to Sunday, October 14 at the Chauvel Cinema, Palace Verona, Dendy Newtown and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, the fest casts its eyes far and wide to relay stunning stories that couldn't be more real.

You won't find CGI fantasies and simple accounts of good versus evil here, but what you will discover is a plethora of thought-provoking efforts — surveying everything from politics, depression, democracy and cannibalism to soccer, consumerism, art scandals and roller-skating. Many of the festival's highlights are also homegrown, from the emotionally and visually striking Island of Hungry Ghosts, about immigration detention on Christmas Island, to The Eviction, about two friends' battle to save Sydney's Sirius building.

Also look out for opening night's Putin's Witnesses, which chronicles the current Russian president's rise to power; Yours in Sisterhood, a powerful reading of unpublished letters sent to America's first mainstream feminist publication in the 1970s; and Aquarela, an aesthetically impressive ode to water in all of its guises. Cinephiles will want to stare into The Eyes of Orson Welles, a cinematic essay about the Citizen Kane filmmaker by The Story of Film's Mark Cousins, while everyone can enjoy closing night's The Gospel of Eureka, the SXSW hit that initiates viewers into the world of gospel drag shows.