Film & TV

Australian Premieres For Top End Wedding & Animals At Adelaide Film Fest Pop Up

Item: Australian Premieres For Top End Wedding & Animals At Adelaide Film Fest Pop Up
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Author: Glam Adelaide

By Glam Adelaide

Posted on February 27, 2019

Miranda Tapsell, Wayne Blair, Shari Sebbens, Huw Higginson, Sophie Hyde to attend.

Made with support of the internationally renowned Adelaide Film Fest FUND, the hotly anticipated Australian titles TOP END WEDDING and ANIMALS are set to have their Australian Premieres at a celebratory Adelaide Film Fest Pop Up Event across 5 – 7 April in what will be a weekend of weddings, parties… and Q&As. AND YOU’RE INVITED!

Confirmed to walk the red carpet are Top End Wedding star and co-writer Miranda Tapsell (The Sapphires), co-writer and South Australian Joshua Tyler, actors Shari Sebbens (Thor: Ragnarok, The Sapphires) and Huw Higginson (Janet King, The Bill) and director Wayne Blair (The Sapphires) and Animals Director and Producer Sophie Hyde and Producer Bec Summerton, with additional guests still to be announced.

Both films will premiere with a red carpet gala screening and after party, with a screening and Q&A the day following their premieres.

The films are arriving direct from their Sundance Film Festival World Premieres where they were received with great critical and audience acclaim. They screened as two of a record six Australian films in Sundance selection, four of which received local funding from both Adelaide Film Fest Fund and the SAFC, with The Nightingale and I Am Mother screened at the October 2018 ADL Film Fest.

The Pop Up event gets underway on the evening of Friday 5 April with the premiere and after party for Animals, an official Australian/Irish co-production between Closer Productions and Vico Films. Set in Dublin, Animals stars Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawkat as two deliciously wild flatmates, whose decade long friendship is strained when one falls in love and begins to question what is really hindering her aspirations.

Directed by award-winning South Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde (52 Tuesdays), Animals is adapted from the acclaimed novel by Emma Jane Unsworth. Produced by Sarah Brocklehurst, Rebecca Summerton, Cormac Fox and Sophie Hyde.

In its four star review out of Sundance, The Guardian called the film “a wonderful, utterly lived-in film about two women at a crossroads, one that attendees should be breathlessly, excitedly discussing around town, urging everyone else to see immediately…Echoes of Trainwreck, Bridesmaids and Fleabag only serve to remind us of how unconventional and defiant Animals is in comparison.

Saturday 6 April is time for a big screen wedding you will never forget as Adelaide couple Lauren (Miranda Tapsell) and Ned (Gwilym Lee, currently on screen as Brian May in Bohemian Rhapsody) have just ten days to find Lauren’s mother who has gone AWOL somewhere in the remote far north of Australia, reunite her parents and pull off their dream wedding.

On track to be the Australian feel-good film of the year, Top End Wedding is directed by Wayne Blair and features a stellar ensemble cast including AACTA Award nominee Kerry Fox (Bright Star, Cloudstreet), Ursula Yovich (The Code, Australia), Shari Sebbens, Huw Higginson,Elaine Crombie (Top of The Lake, Black Comedy) and Dalara Williams (Get Krak!n, Black Comedy). Top End Wedding is produced by Rosemary Blight and Kylie du Fresne for Goalpost Pictures and South Australian Kate Croser for KOJO.

The ADL Film Fest FUND was the first of its kind in Australia and remains one of the few in the world. The more than 100 projects funded to date have won major awards at all of the world’s leading film festivals. Most recently, the 2018 ADL Film Fest opened with international stars Armie Hammer, Dev Patel and Tilda Cobham-Hervey on the red carpet for the premiere screening of FUND title Hotel Mumbai. The festival then saw the Australian premieres of FUND titles including Jennifer Kent’s Venice Film Festival winner The Nightingale and Erica Glynn’s documentary She Who Must Be Loved, which had its International Premiere at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival. Other recent FUND titles include I Am Mother, Sweet Country, Charlie’s Country, Ali’s Wedding, 52 Tuesdays, Girl Asleep, Snowtown and Tracks.

The Adelaide Film Festival acknowledges the support of The Government of South Australia through The Department for Industry and Skills and the support of the Australian federal government through Screen Australia.