Tag: Sundance film festival

Tiaki Teremoana in Stranger, Brother. (2025)

Tiaki Teremoana of “Stranger, Brother” (Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival).

The opening sequence at Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, January 25^th, 2025, for “Stranger, Brother,” an Australian short directed by Tongan/Australian director Annelise Hickey, is a beautiful ocean scene, silhouetting charismatic lead Tiaki Teremoanna who plays Adam. The music (Will Morrissey composed) is good. The gorgeous horizon quickly morphs into a street scene, shot with jerky hand-held strobe-like effects by Director of Photography Matthew Chuang Acs.

The camera work was very effective to illustrate Adam’s recent dissolute lifestyle, including time spent distracting himself from his real life and his original family of origin. Costa-Gavras used the jerky hand-held camera technique way back in 1969’s “Z” and critics internationally swooned. It has since become a cinema staple. It is used effectively in the scenes that depict Adam’s attempts to run away from his real life and family by living life in the fast lane in night-time Australia.

It is a surprise when—after a night spent partying—Adam’s half-brother Moses (called Moss) turns up unexpectedly on Adam’s doorstep. The younger boy (Moses) has a different mother than Adam. Their Aboriginal father has provided no advance warning about Moses’ arrival or why he might be visiting. Adam does ask (“So, are you gonna’ tell me why you’re really here?”) but the younger brother does not immediately answer.

The two make a trip to the grocery store and exchange normal conversational banter about the relative “hotness” of Laura (Charly Thorn), but it isn’t until they are together on the beach that there Is a real break-through in communicating, as Adam finally succeeds in contacting their mutual father by phone and learns that Moses’ mother, Mary, is dying in hospice. Moss is upset and tense and the brothers nearly come to blows on the beach. Adam seems to realize, in that moment, that he has an obligation as Moses’ older half-brother, to provide some stability and a haven for a young boy in distress. It is fitting that the end of the short film takes place where it began, on the shore of the same beautiful beach where it began.

The film was shot on the unceded lands of the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, which is sacred Aboriginal land.

The lead (Tiaki Teremoana) as Adam is particularly charismatic and the message about accepting and supporting one’s family, no matter how fractured that family may be, is clear. The sound, music, and cinematography help drive home that point. Director Annelise Hickey, who earned an award as the emerging Australian filmmaker at the 2023 Melbourne Film Awards has supervised an interesting and meaningful 14’ 31” short film that premiered at the Egyptian Theater at Sundance on Saturday night, January 25^,2025.

The film’s short synopsis read:

“Two estranged half-brothers are thrust together when 10-year-old Mose unexpectedly appears on millennial Adam’s doorstep. Annoyed by the disruption to his care-free life, Adam struggles to contact their elusive father for answers but is met with silence. Tensions rise as Mose begins to suspect that Adam is ashamed of him, while Adam discovers the poignant truth: Mose’s mother is dying. The brothers clash in a heated confrontation that ultimately reveals their unspoken need for each other.

Meet the Artist

Annelise Hickey is a narrative filmmaker from Naarm (Melbourne). Her debut short, Hafekasi (2023 Tribeca Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival), earned a Narrative Short Special Jury Mention. Hickey is the recipient of the 2023 Emerging Australian Filmmaker award at the Melbourne Film Festival. (Photo courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival).

Credits

Director(s)
Annelise Hickey
Screenwriter
Annelise Hickey
Producers
Tessa Mansfield-Hung
Josie Baynes
Director of Photography
Matthew Chuang ACS
Production Designer
Francesca Carey
Edited by
Grace Eyre
Music Composer
Will Morrissey
Sound Designer
Sean Wilkinson
Colorist
CJ Dobson CSI
Executive Producer
Jarred Osborn
Principal Cast
Tiaki Teremoana
Samson Uili
Charly Thorn
Patrick Livesey

Year
2024
Category
Short
Country
Australia
Language
English
Run time
15 min
Company
Wildebeest Films
Contact
[email protected]

“A New Kind of Wilderness” Is 2024 Sundance World Cinema Grand Prize Winner

By Connie Wilson

On January 29, 2024

In Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Pop Culture, Reviews

Sundance Film Festival is ending its 40^th run on January 28^th.I’ve been streaming many of the award winners, including these, in alphabetical order:

“A New Kind of Wilderness”
“A Real Pain”
“Daughters”
“In the Summers”
“Kneecap”
“Little Death”
“Porcelain War”
“Suncoast”

[I’ll be telling you about the above films in installments over the next few days, so tune in.]

Although “A New Kind of Wilderness” is first on the list because it is alphabetically first, I think it may be my favorite of the 8 listed, which are award winners. “A New Kind of Wilderness” won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize.

The beautiful part of “A New Kind of Wilderness” is that it is a documentary, but also contains a wonderful story of how a couple in Norway (he is British; she is Norwegian) chose to drop off the grid and raise their children on a farm in Norway. As Nik, the father of Freja, Falk, Ulv and step-father of Ronja tells us, “We want to be independent, free, and full of love.” He added, “We govern our own lives…When you choose a life that is so dependent on yourself, you have a certain authenticity.”

The children have no television, no electronic devices, are home schooled, and learn about growing their own food and hunting and butchering animals for food. The father, Nik, warns the children that traditional schooling teaches, “You can be yourself, but only if you fit in and follow the rules.”

But then the children’s mother, Maria Gros Daine, dies and the group is forced to sell the farm and move to the city. They also spend 4 months in England visiting Nik’s parents, but the kids obviously do not want to move to England, although he temporarily considers it, because, as he said, “It’s a lot harder being alone.”

George MacKay in Captain Fantastic (2016)

The entire story was basically the 2016 film “Captain Fantastic” starring Viggo Mortensen and written and directed by Matt Ross. The director was Silje Evensme Jacobsen and she got the idea of the film from Maria’s blog wildandfree.no and worked on developing the gorgeous images from it (Maria was a professional photographer) into this film. It was very well done and the plot mimicked Matt Ross’ plot line as the children are gradually introduced to the electronic world and school and they begin to enjoy learning and socializing, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It is a good thing because living off the grid is also an isolating experience, but it is also bittersweet to hear Frija tell her father she would rather go to school than play hooky and go camping with him.

It was a beautiful film and all of the issues in the “Captain Fantastic” film were addressed using real-life participants in the adventure of dropping out of normal life to live an exceptional life, the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.