Rencontres International du Cinéma des Antipodes – 12-16 October 2022

Blue skies, full houses and some excellent films made the Rencontres International du Cinéma des Antipodes, directed by AFBA member Bernard Bories, a sunny success in October.

The four-day festival of Australian and New Zealand films has been held in St Tropez for nearly a quarter of a century – 24 years to be exact – and has become, as St Tropez Mayor Madame Sylvie Siri quipped, “as important on the St Tropez calendar as the famous yacht races”.

This year’s Oscar Winner Jane Campion was there, not in person but on the screen in the opening night film La Femme Cinema directed by French film-maker Julie Bertuccelli and coproduced by Arte. The documentary traces the life and work of the New Zealand director whose film The Power of the Dog won her the coveted Best Director Oscar award and 12 nominations.

This year’s St Tropez jury prize went to the powerful drama The Drover’s Wife, written, directed and co-produced by Leah Purcell, who also took the leading role, and Best Actor award was won by Nitin Vengurlekar in the absurdist comedy The Lonely Spirits Variety Hour, directed by Platon Theodoris. The Lonely Spirits, already a cult film in Australia, picked up an enthusiastic following in Paris when it was screened at the Embassy on the 27th October.

Photos by: Claire de Robespierre.