DOCWEST 2022
2 - 6 November
Returning for the first time since 2019, with the support of Screen NSW, Antenna presents DocWest: a carefully curated program that features Australian and Sydney Premieres of some of the most acclaimed documentaries from Australia and around the world. In addition to the screenings, the program includes special events and Q&As by local and international filmmakers. Exclusive to DocWest is the Sydney Premiere of Madeleine Parry’s The Angels: Kickin’ Down the Door, about the legendary Australian band.
DocWest takes place at Parramatta’s Event Cinema between 2–6 November and will include films from 15 different countries, including Lebanon, Hong Kong, Israel, Russia, New Zealand, Chile, the UK, and Australia.
RETROGRADE
WEDNESDAY 2 NOVEMBER – 6:30PM
Oscar-nominated director Matthew Heineman’s brilliant, moving film shows the last months of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, capturing the turmoil as American troops pull out. A heart-wrenching look at the aftermath of the controversial end to the “forever war.”
BLUE ISLAND
THURSDAY 3 NOVEMBER – 6:30PM
Winner of Hot Docs, Blue Island confronts the depressed state of Hong Kong protestors in the wake of China’s 2020 national security law with a longer history of the island as a site of refuge. The result is an elegiac film which memorialises Hong Kong’s desire for self-assertion and its inhabitants’ perseverance in the face of a seemingly irreversible fate.
CESÁRIA ÉVORA
FRIDAY 4 NOVEMBER – 6:30 PM
| Cesária Évora is an intimate documentary about the world-renowned singer known as the Barefoot Diva. With previously unseen footage and insights into the singer’s life, the film follows her struggles and success. Cesária’s voice took her from poverty to stardom but her only dream was to be free. |
BATATA
SATURDAY 5 NOVEMBER – 11:00 AM
JUANITA NIELSEN NOW
SATURDAY 5 NOVEMBER – 2:00 PM
Bringing together actors, performers, activists, stripers, sex workers and beekeepers, artist and filmmaker Zanny Begg explores the unsolved murder of Sydney anti-development campaigner and glamorous style icon Juanita Nielsen in 1975.
HOW TO SAVE A DEAD FRIEND
SATURDAY 5 NOVEMBER – 3:45 PM
They both came from wrecked homes, but once they found each other, they were happy, at least for a while. A decade of love between the filmmaker and her partner is captured by the backdrop of the harsh reality of life in a crumbling Russia.
MCENROE
SATURDAY 5 NOVEMBER – 6:00 PM
Featuring never-before-seen footage and told by the man himself, McEnroe recalls the epic career of one of the most explosive sporting icons of all time, whose internal conflict drove him to the very top, and very nearly broke him too.
THE ANGELS: KICKIN’ DOWN THE DOOR
SATURDAY 5 NOVEMBER – 8:30 PM
The Angels came hurtling out of Adelaide in the 1970s, transforming the Aussie music scene from pretty pop to gritty guitar rock. After rising to become a behemoth of the local rock scene they were on the path to international success, but internal tensions strained relationships to breaking point… even while producing incandescent rock’n’roll.
CROWS ARE WHITE
SUNDAY 6 NOVEMBER – 11:00 AM
Director Ahsen Nadeem leads a double life. To find a solution for his problem, he travels to a remote Japanese monastery on a scenic mountaintop—home to an ancient, secretive sect of Buddhist monks who perform extreme acts of endurance. Will he find answers there, or are they inside him already?
MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY
SUNDAY 6 NOVEMBER – 1:15 PM
Direct from Cannes comes Chilean master Patricio Guzmán’s latest razor-sharp reflection on his homeland: a chronicle of the Santiago uprising of 2019. As Chile faces a new and exciting future, Guzmán is there to show us how it was bravely fought for.
TANTURA
SUNDAY 6 NOVEMBER – 3:30 PM
Filmmakers investigate controversial events at the Palestinian village of Tantura in 1948, where survivors claimed to witness a massacre of civilians by Israeli troops. An exploration of Israel’s founding myth and the country’s inability to come to terms with its dark past,
OFF THE RAILS
SUNDAY 6 NOVEMBER – 5:30 PM
Two urbex and parkour-obsessed teenagers face up to reality following the death of their friend, in Peter Day’s riveting portrait of urban life.
DOCWEST IS SUPPORTED BY THE NSW GOVERNMENT THROUGH SCREEN NSW
