From the 8th of May, Palace Cinemas will be exclusively screening the third American Essentials Film Festival in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Canberra. The festival will present twenty two of the best contemporary American independent films and a formidable retrospective program honouring the spirit of Los Angeles.
Sponsored by Discover Los Angeles and American Airlines, the festival will open nationally with Sophie Brooks’s directorial debut The Boy Downstairs, a dramatic romance featuring Girls star Zosia Mamet. Mamet portrays Diana, an ambitious, aspiring writer who finds the perfect Brooklyn apartment, though only to discover that her new downstairs neighbour is her ex-boyfriend.Hard hitting dramas are well represented with the likes of 55 Steps, which is based on the true story of Colette Hughes, played by Hilary Swank and Eleanor Riese, played by Helena Bonham Carter, a lawyer and psychiatric patient, respectively, who lodged a case for patients’ rights in 1987.
Meanwhile, Lynn Shelton’s new drama Outside In narrates the struggles of an ex con portrayed by Jay Duplass as he readjusts to life in a small town. Crime thriller aficionados will be comfortably satisfied by Never Here, a haunting David Lynch picture starring Mireille Enos and the late Sam Shepard in his last screen appearance. Cult fan favourite Nicolas Cage features alongside Selma Blair in the black comedy Mom and Dad, which sees a suburban couple caught in a bizarre phenomenon that fills parents with a murderous rage.
On the lighter side of the programs is Humor Me, which stars Jemaine Clement as a struggling playwright who moves into his wisecracking father’s New Jersey retirement community. Likewise, Pet Names is a Wisconsin-set feature directed by Carol Brandt, and chronicles the haphazard misadventures of a former couple living in close quarters. Festival goers are also able to relive the 1995 crime saga Heat in newly restored 4k. Heat famously stars Al Pacino and Robert De Niro on opposite sides of the law in one of cinema’s greatest showdowns.
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