A story of Australia

Even as China's film industry booms, embassies and film organizations abroad are bringing in more of their countries' best films to movie lovers in Beijing through film festivals.

This weekend, My Australian Life - 2009 ANZ Australian Film Festival, offer cinephiles eight films that cover a range of genres including animation (Mary and Max and Happy Feet), drama (Razzle Dazzle, Samson and Delilah and Look Both Ways), history (Ten Canoes, Australia and Kokoda), and comedy (Kenny), besides a collection of finalists at Tropfest, the world's largest short film festival.

"The films are diverse but the common thread is that they tell a story about Australian people and society," says Jill Collins, Counselor Public Affairs and Culture, Australian Embassy Beijing.

Mary and Max is a 90-minute animation by Oscar award-winning director Adam Elliot. This opening night film of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival tells the simple story of a pen-pal friendship between two very different people: Mary Dinkle, a chubby, lonely 8-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horowitz, a 44-year-old Jewish man, who is severely obese, suffers from Asperger's syndrome, and lives an isolated life in New York City.

Razzle Dazzle, a dance-themed movie by Darren Ashton, follows the passionate members of the Jonathon Dance Academy as they compete for success at Australia's most prestigious competition.

Samson and Delilah, voted best feature film at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, by Warwich Thornton, explores a remote Aboriginal community in the Australian desert.

Eight award-winning Australian documentaries will also be screened at a special Made in Australia session at the on-going iDOCS International Documentary Festival at the Beijing Film Academy. The iDOCS International Documentary Forum, which begins today and is on till Wednesday, will let Chinese audiences enjoy some of the world's best documentaries and also provide an opportunity for face-to-face interaction with many of the world's leading short film directors, such as Australia's Amanda King and Mark Lewis.

Meanwhile, fans of Italian cinema can catch art house classics such as La doppia ora by Giuseppe Capotondi and Lo spazio bianco by Francesca Comencini, at the Festival of Italian Cinema: from Venice to Beijing, that ends today.

You can catch the following films today and tomorrow at Megabox Cinema, B1, The Village at Sanlitun, Chaoyang district, 6417-6118.

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