An awesome variety of films at this year’s Revelation film festival: Win double in-season passes!

Who’d have thought one of Western Australia’s most respected film festivals started out in the back room of an underground jazz bar?

Revelation commenced its formal life in 1997 in the basement back room of the Greenwich Club, Perth’s legendary jazz venue, with a humble program designed to showcase ideas “at point” in contemporary independent film. Back then, short films were presented on analogue 16mm from the back of the room. No projection room, no digital sound, no fuss and hype – but plenty of great experimental ideas put to celluloid.

Today, the event includes over 200 international films presented at cinemas and bars across Perth and Fremantle.

Combined with moving image / art collaborations at the Fremantle Arts Centre and the XR:WA Games & VR expo, Revelation now attracts around 22,000 patrons and an army of national and international guests across two weeks, while the film showings happen over the one weekend. This year’s films are being shown from Wednesday 12th July to Sunday 16th July.

Now entering its twenty-fifth year, Revelation continues to focus on independent cinema, emergent talent – both local and international, cutting-edge documentaries, and much more.

Opening this year’s festival is US crime drama Devil’s Peak from Perth director Ben Young. The film stars Billy Bob Thornton, Robin Wright, Hopper Penn and Emma Booth, and is set in North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains, following the story of teenager Jacob McNeely who is torn between his meth-dealing kingpin dad and leaving the mountains forever with the girl he loves. Really, then, its crime meets drama meets romance.

Billy Bob Thornton in the almost-fully-WA-made Devil’s Peak.

Rev also invites us to witness the psychotropic spectacle of American politics from 2016 – 2021 with Hello Dankness, the latest sample-based experimental film from New York-based Australian siblings Dan and Dominique Angeloro (the artist duo also known as Soda Jerk). A political fable disguised as a stoner musical comprised entirely of hundreds of pirated film samples, this is part political satire, part zombie stoner flick, and part Greek tragedy – a record of the time, written from the time.

Testament to the Rev’s longstanding reputation for showcasing cutting edge “must-see” documentaries that will challenge viewers is Manifesto; a found footage film comprised entirely of often-shocking videos uploaded by Russian teenagers to social media platforms. The presumably pseudonymous filmmaker Angie Vinchito has taken considerable risk with this dark, disturbing portrait of school life that shows how aggression and oppression are unwittingly passed on to the next generation.

That’s just a small taste of what’s on offer at this year’s Revelation film festival.

Check out revelationfilmfest.org for a program packed with all genres and appealing to all audiences.

Antonino Tati

The Revelation Perth International Film Festival is on from July 12-16, 2023.

For more information, visit revelationfilmfest.org.

COMPETITION!

Courtesy of Revelation Perth International Film Festival, Cream has five in-season double passes to see any particular movie you’d like within the program. To try winning a double pass, simply email cream@pobox.com with your Name, Address and the Subject heading: Revelation. Competition closes at 3pm AWST, Friday 9th June and winners will be sent their tickets in that evening’s post.