Three upcoming Australian films – Audrey, Birdeater and The Moogai – are among the prestige bunch selected to show at this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.
Each screening of the aforementioned films at SXSW will mark their international premieres.
The Moogai is an Indigenous horror fable directed by Jon Bell. In the film, a young Aboriginal couple brings home their second baby. What should be a joyous time takes a sinister turn, as the baby’s mother starts seeing a malevolent spirit she is convinced is trying to take her baby.
Audrey is a dramedy following self-appointed Mother of the Year, Ronnie Lipsick, who is living a life she never wanted, with a derailed career, a husband whose love for life has gone limp and two daughters who she struggles to connect with. When an accident lands her eldest daughter Audrey in a coma, Ronnie gets a second chance at life by taking on her daughter’s identity – only she’s not the only one in the family who sees Audrey’s comatose state as an opportunity.
And Birdeater, which played at both the Sydney Film Festival and Melbourne International Film Festival last year, follows the recently engaged Irene. who has been roped into joining her awkward but loving fiancé Louie’s buck’s party weekend out in the sticks. Louie’s deadbeat groomsmen, however, have more in mind than just a quiet glass of pinot by the fire, and as night falls the celebration nosedives into a feverish, drug-fuelled train wreck.
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Birdeater, which won an audience award at the Sydney Film Festival last year, will screen in the horror/thriller section of the SXSW program, and Audrey is one of only eight films to make its world premiere in the Narrative Feature Competition. The Moogai, a feature film expansion of the short film, will screen in the Festival Favourite category. The short version of The Moogai won the SXSW 2021 Grand Jury prize after playing in that years’ Midnight Shorts section.
SXSW will be held in Austin, Texas from 16-24 March.
