56th Sydney Film Festival 2009 kicked off today (3rd June 2009) with 12 films competing for the top prize which is AUD$60,000, provided by Hunter Hall Investment Management. Ken Loach’s Looking For Eric will be the Opening Night Film then followed by Sebastián Silva’s The Maid on 4th June 2009.

Sydney Film Festival mission was to recognizes filmmakers for work that is “courageous, audacious and cutting-edge” and by means films which is have “new directions in film”. Official Competition films must be enterprising and bold with the power to provoke original thought and emotion.

Australian director, Rolf de Heer is the 2009 Official Competition Jury President with four other Jury members (three international, one Australian) will determine the winning film which will be awarded the Sydney Film Prize on the festival’s Closing Night (14 June 2009).

 

Here’s the list of 12 Official Competitition films for 56th Sydney Film Festival 2009.

 

LOOKING FOR ERIC | UK-France-Belgium-Italy

Director : Ken Loach | Screenplay : Paul Laverty

Cast : Steve Evets, Eric Cantona, Stepanie Bishop

Comedy, Drama, Sport

Devoted soccer fan Eric Bishop (Evets) struggles with his day-to-day life as a postman and unexpectedly receives a little life-coaching from soccer star Eric Cantona (as himself).

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE | USA

Director : Steven Soderbergh | Screenplay : Brian Koppelman, David Levien

Cast : Sasha Grey, Chris Santos, Peter Zizzo

Drama

A drama set in the days leading up to the 2008 Presidential election, and centered on a high-end Manhattan call girl meeting the challenges of her boyfriend, her clients, and her work.

 

 

 

 

 

LOUISE-MICHEL | France

Director : Gustave de Kervern, Benoît Delépine | Screenplay : Gustave de Kervern, Benoît Delépine

Cast : Yolande Moreau, Bouli Lanners, Benoît Poelvoorde

Comedy

Wildly anarchic duo de Kervern and Delépine’s (Aaltra) absurdist comedy in which redundant factory workers pool their funds and hire a hitman to trackdown and take-out the boss.

 

 

 

 

 

MISSING WATER | Australia

Director : Prod Khoa Do | Screenplay : Prod Khoa Do

Cast : Kathy Nguyen, Sheena Pham, Hieu Phan

Drama

Khoa Do’s deeply personal film centres on the plight of Vietnamese refugees who travelled in junks and trawlers to Australia in the late 70s and early 80s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

DISGRACE | Australia

Director : Steve Jacobs | Screenplay : Anna Maria Monticelli

Cast : John Malkovich, Jessica Haines, Eriq Ebouaney

Drama

After having an affair with a student, a Cape Town professor moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics. Based on the novel by Nobel prize-winner JM Coetzee.

 

 

 

 

 

CORALINE | USA

Director : Henry Selick | Screenplay : Henry Selick, Neil Gaiman

Voice : Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders

Animation, Adventure, Family, Fantasy

An adventurous girl finds another world that is a strangely idealized version of her frustrating home, but it has sinister secrets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BRONSON | UK

Director : Nicholas Winding Refn | Screenplay : Nicholas Winding Refn, Brock Norman Brock

Cast : Tom Hardy, Matt King, Kelly Adams

Action, Biography, Drama, Thriller

A young man who was sentenced to 7 years on prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson.

 

 

 

 

ALTIPLANO | Belgium-Germany-Netherlands

Director : Peter Brosens, Jessica Hope Woodworth | Screenplay : Peter Brosens, Jessica Hope Woodworth

Cast : Jasmin Tabatabai, Magaly Solier, Olivier Gourmet

Drama

A former war photographer and her physician husband are caught up in a riot when locals in an Andean village vent their unhappiness with contamination from a nearby mine.

 

 

 

 

 

BUMAZNYJ SOLDAT aka PAPER SOLDIER| Russia

Director : Alexey German Jr | Screenplay : Alexey German Jr, Vladimir Arkusha

Cast : Anastasya Sheveleva, Merab Ninidze, Chulpan Khamatova

Drama, Romance

In 1961, a Soviet medical officer is conflicted about his position overseeing the health of future cosmonauts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LA NANA aka THE MAID | Chile-Mexico

Director : Sebastián Silva | Screenplay : Sebastián Silva

Cast : Catalina Saavedra, Claudia Celedón, Alejandro Goic

Drama

Sebastián Silva’s perceptive and amusing second feature follows a long serving (and suffering) live-in maid and is underscored with an awareness of the class system and its inherent tendencies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BEAUTIFUL KATE | Australia

Director : Rachel Ward | Screenplay : Rachel Ward, Newton Thornburg

Cast : Rachel Griffiths, Bryan Brown, Ben Mendelsohn

Drama, Mystery

A writer visits his isolated family home to say goodbye to his dying father, but memories of his beautiful twin sister awaken long buried secrets from their past.

 

 

 

 

 

VISAGE aka FACE| France-Taiwan

Director : Tsai Ming-liang | Screenplay : Tsai Ming-liang

Cast : Lee Kang-sheng, Laetitia Casta, Fanny Ardant

Comedy, Drama, Mystery

In the first film commissioned by the Louvre, a Taiwainese film director (Lee), who cannot speak French, is invited to Paris to make a film based on the story of Salome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winner of the Sydney Film Prize will be announced on the festival’s Closing Night, this Sunday 14 June 2009.