The Inner West Film Fest part three, scary clowns, road trips, and other films

Showing all posts tagged: Luàna Bajrami

The Inner West Film Fest part three, scary clowns, road trips, and other films

27 March 2025

The Inner West Film Fest returns for its third outing, between Wednesday 9 April to Thursday 17 April 2025. The inner west — for readers outside of Australia, and that’s a fair few you — is a group of suburbs to the west of downtown Sydney, not too close in, but not too far out either. Newtown, Leichhardt, Balmain, and Marrickville, are among the suburbs in Sydney’s inner west.

Flat Girls by Jirassaya Wongsutin, Who by Fire by Philippe Lesage, and The King Tide by Christian Sparkes, are but a few of the titles screening. Check out the festival trailer for the vibe.

The mysterious death of a young woman’s uncle triggers family turmoil in On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, trailer, by Zambian-Welsh director Rungano Nyoni. The title screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2024, but isn’t in theatrical release in Australia, as far as I can see, so check the streaming services.

Deux personnes échangeant de la salive (Two People Exchanging Saliva) a short by Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh, is set in a repressive world where kissing is illegal. Don’t snigger: it might happen. Luàna Bajrami, who featured in Portrait of a Lady on Fire (presently stream-able on Kanopy, by the way), stars as Malaise. See the teaser here (Instagram link).

With or Without You, trailer, by Kelly Schilling, an Adelaide, Australia based filmmaker, is a road trip story about three people, at odds with each other, forced to drive together across Australia. With or Without You opens in local cinemas on Thursday 8 May 2025.

Why do clowns and horror stories go together so well? I have no idea. But if you like horror movies featuring sinister clowns, then Clown in a Cornfield, trailer, directed by Eli Craig, might be for you. Also opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 8 May 2025.

The Hill Where Lionesses Roar, a film by Luàna Bajrami

10 May 2022

Luàna Bajrami first came to my attention in her role as Sophie, in Céline Sciamma’s stellar 2019 film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but the French-Kosovar actor is also a writer and director, and La Colline Où Rugissent Les Lionnes (The Hill Where Lionesses Roar), trailer, is her debut feature:

Best friends Jeta, Li and Qe live in a remote Kosovan village from which they see no way out. Bored and restless, the young women spend their days dreaming big but not living large – until, in a moment of aimless distraction, they rebrand themselves as a gang and fall into a life of crime. Exhilarated by the newfound sense of independence offered by their illegal pursuits, the trio soon discover that their ill-gotten gains come with some dangerous caveats.

The parallels between Bajrami’s film and Portrait of a Lady on Fire are intriguing, with — to be succinct — both stories featuring three women contravening social norms.

While The Hill Where Lionesses Roar screened at last year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, it didn’t appear to have a wider Australian theatrical release, so it looks like streaming may be the only option for seeing the film in this part of the world.