Fresh from its return from New York’s New Directors/New Films festival, and a glowing review from The New Yorker, Australian audiences will have an opportunity to see Alena Lodkina’s new feature film PETROL at a series of special screenings accompanied by Q&A’s in Sydney, Perth and Canberra ahead of its release at Sydney’s Golden Age Cinema on May 12 and Melbourne’s Cinema Nova on 15 June.
The annual New Directors/New Films festival is presented by New York’s Lincoln Centre and the Museum of Modern Art and showcases a wide-ranging group of films by emerging directors working at the vanguard of cinema. Throughout its history, the festival has presented works by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Kelly Reichardt, Pedro Almodóvar, Souleymane Cissé, Euzhan Palcy, Jia Zhangke, Spike Lee, Lynne Ramsay, Michael Haneke, Wong Kar Wai, Agnieszka Holland, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Guillermo del Toro, Luca Guadagnino and others, It is a celebration of the continued vitality and promise of the medium.
New Yorker film critic Richard Brody described PETROL as a festival standout, that describes the metaphysical dimensions of the new friendship.
“What’s exciting about the annual new Directors/New Films series is the discovery of filmmakers who pose new questions and seek new answers to the practise of filmmaking itself. It’s what the Australian filmmaker Alena Lodkina does in her second feature ‘Petrol’. Lodkina borrows one of the most familiar of young filmmaker’s tropes – the drama of a film student struggling to complete a thesis film – and transforms it into something as original as it is personal.”
Read the full New Yorker review here.
An Arenamedia film, PETROL stars Nathalie Morris (Bump) and Hannah Lynch. It is produced by Kate Laurie, with cinematography by Michael Latham, editing by Luca Cappelli and production design by Leah Popple. A MIFF Premiere Fund film, the film is produced with the support of Screen Australia, VicScreen, SBS and Orange Entertainment.
PETROL – the story of a haunted friendship between two young women, and the discovery of the world and self through a strange bond – is quintessentially Melbourne in its setting, the city where it was shot and edited.
Eva, an impressionable film student of Russian background, befriends an enigmatic performance artist named Mia who quickly takes hold of Eva’s imagination. As Eva moves in with Mia and their lives grow more and more entwined, Eva sets off on a surreal journey of awakening, haunted by dreams, fantasies and ghosts.
Director Alena Lodkina said: “For me, Petrol is a film about a young woman’s search of self, the strange line between self and others, the vulnerability of youth. At a time of change and discovery, when one readily loses oneself in other people, the delicate line between reality and imagination can become blurred.”
Director Alena Lodkina will guest at Special Q&A screenings in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
PETROL SCREENINGS AND Q&A’s
Thursday 11 May 6pm Canberra Arc Cinema (with Nathalie Morris)
Friday 12 May 6pm Sydney Golden Age
Sunday 14 May 6pm Sydney Randwick Ritz
Monday 15 May 6pm UTS (Q&A event only)
Thursday 25 May 6:30pm Perth Luna Leederville
Thurs 15 June 6:45pm Melbourne Cinema Nova
For all screening and Q&A details and bookings go to : http://petrolfilm.com/
