Antenna Documentary Film Festival

Antenna Documentary Film Festival

5-15 feb
2026
Sydney

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KIRSTEN JOHNSON SELECTS

 

 

 

 

Unearthed and brought back to light, this program curated by Kirsten Johnson brings together a handpicked selection of cinematic works that have profoundly shaped her creative journey. Each film reflects questions at the core of her practice — questions such as: What does it mean to look at another person? What do we hold onto when images cannot carry the full weight of memory or truth? What does it mean to witness suffering — and to honour it? And can cinema offer dignity, hold someone with tenderness, or even redeem a life? Together, these films trace the artistic and political lineage that informs Johnson’s own groundbreaking work, offering a deeply personal window into the cinema that has shaped one of the most distinctive voices in nonfiction filmmaking today.

Supported by DocPlay 

MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA
Dziga Vertov | Russia | 1929 | 68 min

Voted one of the ten greatest films ever made in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll — and named the best documentary of all time in a 2014 follow-up survey — Man with a Movie Camera stands as one of cinema’s essential works: a dazzling exploration of what image-making can reveal about the everyday world around us. Filmed across Odessa, Kyiv and Moscow, Vertov constructs a portrait of a city in motion using rapid montage, double exposures, split screens, slow motion and every cinematic device at his disposal. Everyday life — work, play, machinery, movement, intimacy — is transformed into pure visual rhythm. Dispensing with actors, intertitles and narrative, the film reveals not only the world before the lens but the filmmaking process itself, turning the cameraman and the editor into central characters in this exhilarating experiment in what Vertov called “pure cinema.”

 

The screening will be introduced by Kirsten Johnson

Session Times

ONE SINGS, THE OTHER DOESN'T
Agnès Varda | France | 1977 | 121 min

In the early 1960s in Paris, two young women become friends. Pomme is an aspiring singer. Suzanne is a pregnant country girl unable to support a third child. Pomme lends Suzanne the money for an illegal abortion, but a sudden tragedy soon separates them. Ten years later, they reunite at a demonstration and pledge to keep in touch via postcard, as each of their lives is irrevocably changed by the women’s liberation movement. A buoyant hymn to sisterly solidarity rooted in the hard-won victories of a generation of women, One Sings, the Other Doesn’t is one of Agnès Varda’s warmest and most politically trenchant films, a feminist musical for the ages.

 

The screening will be introduced by Kirsten Johnson

Session Times

SAMBIZANGA
Sarah Maldoror | Angola | 1972 | 97 min

This revolutionary bombshell by Sarah Maldoror chronicles the awakening of Angola’s independence movement. Based on a true story, Sambizanga follows a young woman as she makes her way from the outskirts of Luanda toward the city’s center looking for her husband after his arrest by the Portuguese authorities—an incident that will ultimately help to ignite a national uprising. Featuring a cast of nonprofessionals—many of whom were themselves involved in anticolonial resistance—this landmark work of political cinema honors the essential roles of women, as well as the hardships they endure, in the global struggle for liberation.

 

The screening will be introduced by festival guest Kirsten Johnson

Session Times

CLOSE UP
Abbas Kiarostami | Iran | 1990 | 98 min

“We can never get close to the truth except through lying.” – Abbas Kiarostami

Blurring the line between documentary and fiction, Close-Up dramatizes the real case of Hossein Sabzian, a passionate film buff who impersonates renowned director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and tricks a Tehran family into believing they will star in his next film. Sabzian’s ruse is eventually exposed, leading to his arrest and trial. Filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami turns this true story into a groundbreaking film: he films Sabzian’s actual trial and even persuades the real participants—including Sabzian and the duped family—to reenact their own experiences on camera. Beyond its clever docufiction façade, Close-Up is a profound reflection on truth and illusion. Despite the film’s formal playfulness, it remains deeply human, showing compassion for Sabzian’s yearning to escape his ordinary life through art. Kiarostami ultimately transforms a con artist’s misadventure into a gently revelatory tribute to the power of dreams and the transformative magic of cinema.

The first screening will be introduced by festival guest Kirsten Johnson

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