It will be an emotional moment at the country's leading documentary conference next week. A lifetime achievement award will go to producer Brian Beaton, who died last year.
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Best known for Who Do You Think You Are? and Shaun Micallef's Stairway To Heaven, Beaton has been announced as winner of the Stanley Hawes Award at the Australian International Documentary Conference in Melbourne, joining such well-known filmmakers as Rachel Perkins, Tom Zubrycki, Julia Overton, Bob Connolly and David Bradbury on the list of winners.
"There was a genuine outpouring of grief when he passed away in the middle of last year," says conference director Andrew Wiseman. "He was a much-loved member of the documentary film community. He was just one of those genuinely warm and enthusiastic characters."
The award will be accepted by his long-time business partner Celia Tait and older brother and fellow documentary maker John Beaton, who will deliver the Stanley Hawes oration.
"Documentary making can be a long and arduous journey sometimes but it's great when you meet someone like Brian along the way," Wiseman says. "He just made it a more enjoyable path."
A brand new Oscar winner will be a guest at the conference – Ezra Edelman, who won best documentary feature for O.J. Made In America, will appear at various sessions and introduce a free public screening lasting more than seven-and-a-half hours at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
Pscyhological thriller is a one-woman show
It's an unknown film that's a real one-woman show. Finnish-Australian actress Saara Lamberg has written, directed and produced the psychological thriller Innuendo – and, just to give herself some work, also plays identical twins.
The film, shot in Victoria and Finland, has been picked up for international sales by US company Blairwood Entertainment, which will take it to the Cannes Film Market.
Innuendo tells the story of a "bad twin gone deranged", with Lamberg playing Tuuli and Suvi opposite Brendan Bacon from Spin Out and The Mule.
Lamberg's first feature after five short films has reputedly drawn comparisons with the films of David Lynch, Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski, none of whom were ever inventive enough to play identical good and evil twins while also writing and directing.
French talents at festival
The Alliance Francaise French Film Festival is not just screening the work of 17 female directors when it gets under way next week. It has two of them plus an actress as guests.
Director Rebecca Zlotowski (Belle Epine, Grand Central) has Planetarium screening in the festival. The drama has Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp as two American clairvoyant sisters touring Europe.
And director Emmanuelle Bercot, also an actress best known for Mon Roi, will appear at screenings of two films she has directed – 150 Milligrams, which follows a woman attempting to expose the dangers of a profitable new medication; and Standing Tall, with Catherine Deneuve as a juvenile judge who, with a special educator, tries to save a young delinquent.
Joining them is Inna Modja, an actress, songwriter and visual artist from Mali who stars in the crime thriller Wulu,
The festival runs in Sydney from March 7 to 30 and Melbourne from March 8 to 30, with short seasons at Parramatta's Riverside Theatres on April 6 to 9 and Casula Powerhouse from April 8 and 9.
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