First Films

Overview

Before Cannes Palme d'Or-winning director Apichatpong Weerasethakul won one of cinema's most-coveted prizes for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives — and picked up prestigious awards at the same festival for Tropical Malady and Blissfully Yours before that, then went on to make his English-language debut with the Tilda Swinton (The Killer)-starring Memoria — the acclaimed Thai filmmaker initially hopped behind the camera for 2000's Mysterious Object at Noon. It was his first feature. It heralded the arrival of an exceptional new talent. At First Films, Sydneysiders can catch it on the big screen.

When red carpets and whichever stars stroll around glitzy events monopolise the headlines, it can seem as if film festivals are all about the big end of town — aka the movies that'll hit a theatre near us all anyway, and the actors and directors that we all already know. That's one part of the cinema industry staple. Another far-more-crucial component is highlighting new voices and getting their impressive movies before audiences. That's the First Films format.

Surry Hills' Golden Age Cinema and Bar launched its own film fest that's solely about debut movies in 2022. In 2024, it's back between Thursday, December 5–Sunday, December 8 to again celebrate new discoveries — and showcase a feature in Weerasethakul's first film that helps illustrate why debut stints behind the camera are worth cherishing.

The fest opens with the already-soldout Go Fish, another rightly revered blast from the past, with a 4K restoration of Rose Troche's first film screening to mark the influential queer cinema title's 30th anniversary.

Also on the six-movie program, All, Or Nothing at All from Jiajun 'Oscar' Zhang uses Shanghai's Global Harbor mall as its setting; Mountains follows a Haitian man in Miami, and won Monica Sorelle the Independent Spirit Awards' Someone to Watch Award; and Jazmin Renée Jones' documentary Seeking Mavis Beacon steps through the story of the model on the cover of 80s-era typing software. All three are Australian premieres.

Making its Sydney debut, The Hidden Spring sees Jason Di Rosso from ABC Radio National's The Screen Show turn writer/director while musing on his father's terminal illness.