Storm Boy narrowly beat out Indigenous rom-com Top End Wedding for the top spot, emphasising the sheer popularity of these true crowd-pleasers, which are also the highest grossing local features at the Australian box office this year. Top End Wedding played to a full house on a blisteringly hot Saturday afternoon, coming to us direct from its UK premiere at Edinburgh Film Festival. Executive Producer Glen Condie was on hand to introduce the film, and there were plenty of questions afterwards about when the film will get a UK release. All we can say at this stage is that we are certain this won’t be the last that the UK hears from this utter delight of a film.

Alongside the crowd pleasers, we always aim to offer our audiences a taste of the up-and-coming talent that Australia has to offer, and this year’s festival was no different. We had our usual round of excellent student shorts, hand-picked to match every feature (thanks to our partners at Sydney Film School, Swinburne University, and VCA – University of Melbourne). On top of this, however, we were also proud to open and close the festival with two brilliant works of Australian independent cinema. 

We kicked off on Thursday with the Opening Gala drinks reception, ahead of the London premiere of mind-bending indie thriller Reaching Distance. The film’s production designer, Laura Murray, was in attendance, jumping on stage for a quick intro and drawing our famous raffle in the foyer afterwards. Our late screening on Saturday was another cracking indie genre film, the outback noir Locusts, which screened in its European premiere.

Also making it’s European debut was our Closing Gala film, Suburban Wildlife, a really fantastic coming-of-age indie, co-produced, co-written, and directed by Imogen McCluskey, who we flew over for a post-screening Q&A. The film also had an encore screening at Picturehouse Central as part of our mini season to coincide with Pride.

Elsewhere during the festival, we also screened two utterly brilliant documentaries (Ghosthunter and Backtrack Boys), and a pair of rarely screened classics, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the wonderful My Brilliant Career, and the 20th anniversary of the criminally underseen ensemble drama Erskineville Kings, which gave early screen time to both Hugh Jackman and Joel Edgerton.

A particular highlight came with our Pride screening of another classic, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. With director Stephan Elliott unable to make the promised Q&A at Picturehouse Central, he sent along his deputy, the indefatigable Terence Stamp (aka Priscilla’s trans curmudgeon Bernadette), who delighted the crowd with a frank, and often hilarious, Q&A prior to the film.

All in all, then a fantastic couple of weekends. A huge thankyou to everyone who came along – especially those who attended multiple events – and to all who bought Aussie treats or took part in our raffles. You’re probably tired of hearing this, but as a self-funded and volunteer-run organisation, it really is your ongoing support that enables us to continue bringing Australian cinema to London screens.

Special thanks must go to our amazing team of volunteers – both Eds, David, Guilia, Kele, Darren – as well as everyone at Regent Street Cinema for being so accommodating. Extra special thanks to our MCs/Q&A hosts James Mullighan and Ed Gibbs, to Liam for all his work on the rebrand, and to Mike for another fantastic trailer. Thanks also to our screening partners – Origins, Aperture: Asia & Pacific Film Festival, and the Menzies Australia Institute – and to all our supporters and raffle sponsors: Tourism Australia, NT Tourism, London from Scratch, Foundation for Australian and New Zealand Arts, Australian Women’s Club, Allen & Unwin, Bolinda, Murdoch Books, Scholastic, New Holland Publishing, One World Books, Hardie Grant Publishing, and SANZA.

Don’t forget to join our mailing list, and watch this space for future screenings.