BOOK CLUB
AT THE NFSA
Following the success of the 2024 Book Club series, the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and Canberra Writers Festival partner again for a program of screenings and discussions.
The Book Club at the NFSA series kicks off in February and will feature screenings of culturally significant books each month that have made the leap from page to screen.
Strangers on a Train
Strangers agree to exchange murders in Hitchcock’s suspense-filled thriller.
SUN 23 MAR | 1PM | Arc Cinema | $21/$18 ($189/$162)
1951 | M | 101 mins | DCP | US | D: Alfred Hitchcock
When tennis star Guy (Farley Granger) meets playboy Bruno (Robert Walker) on a train, they discuss swapping murder targets, but only Bruno goes through with it.
Alfred Hitchcock squeezes Patricia Highsmith’s novel for all its dramatic tension, in a film that brings the intensity of an illicit affair to the deadly dealings between the two men.
“Hitchcock's study of the guilt that taints the human condition is just one cinematic masterstroke after another.” – The Guardian
The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the novel with special guest author Chris Hammer.
Rabbit-Proof Fence
(4K Restoration)
A moving Stolen Generations story about three young girls trying to find a way home.
SUN 18 MAY | 1PM | Arc Cinema |$21/$18
2002 | PG | 94 mins | 4K DCP | AUS | D: Phillip Noyce
Walmajarri, English
Warning: this page contains names, images or voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Based on Doris Pilkington’s book, in turn based on her mother Molly’s experiences, the film follows Molly (Everlyn Sampi), Gracie (Laura Monaghan) and Daisy (Tianna Sansbury) as they escape from a government boarding house after being stolen from their family. They use the rabbit-proof fence to guide them home. David Gulpilil plays a tracker sent by the white authority (Kenneth Branagh) to chase them.
“…a film both powerful and pondering, hard-hitting and softly spoken, steered by three tremendous performances from actors who seem to reflect all its emotions on their young faces.” – The Guardian
The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the novel with special guest TBC.
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
True story of a down-and-out biographer who turns to making literary forgeries for money.
SUN 27 JUL | 1PM | Arc Cinema | $21/$18
2018 | M | 106 mins | DCP | US | D: Marielle Heller
Once a successful biographer, Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) has fallen on hard times, until she discovers she can make money forging letters by literary greats like Dorothy Parker and Noël Coward. Helped by her friend Jack (Richard E Grant) she embarks on her criminal career.
Based on Lee Israel’s memoir, the film explores friendship, identity and loneliness.
“The miracle is Melissa McCarthy, whose tortured portrait of disgraced celebrity author and convicted forger Lee Israel is the consummate performance of her career and the crowning achievement of her life.” – The Observer
The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the memoir with special guest TBC.
The Colour Purple
Emotionally rich narrative of race, patriarchy, power and resilience in the American South.
SUN 13 APR | 1PM | Arc Cinema | $21/$18 ($189/$162)
1986 | PG | 154 mins | DCP | US | D: Steven Spielberg
When Celie Harris (Whoopi Goldberg) is forced into marriage with the abusive Albert (Danny Glover) in rural Georgia, she finds strength in other women, including Sofia (Oprah Winfrey) and Shug Avery (Margaret Avery).
This film is Steven Spielberg’s 1985 take on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, centring the resistance and strength of Black women. The Color Purple was nominated for 11 Oscars.
“Celie is a great powerful movie character, played with astonishing grace and tenderness, and to feel her story is to be blessed with her humanity.” – Roger Ebert, American film critic
The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the novel with special guest TBC.
Romeo + Juliet
The star-crossed lovers find themselves in a gun-fuelled urban war in Baz Luhrmann’s high-energy version.
SUN 22 JUN | 1PM | Arc Cinema | $21/$18
1996 | PG | 120 mins | 35mm | US, MEX, AUS, CAN | D: Baz Luhrmann
Baz Luhrmann slams Shakespeare’s most famous love story down in a punk futuristic setting where the Montagues and Capulets are feuding corporate empires on fictional Verona Beach.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes sizzle in Luhrmann’s second feature film (after Strictly Ballroom), which keeps Shakespeare’s original script and injects it with a kicking soundtrack and gritty modern visuals.
“Amid the clamour from outraged purists and Shakespeare spinning in his Stratford-upon-Avon, England grave, you should notice that Luhrmann and his two bright angels have shaken up a 400-year-old play without losing its touching, poetic innocence.” – Rolling Stone
The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the play with special guest TBC.
Picnic at Hanging Rock - Director's Cut (50th anniversary)
Hallucinatory Australian gothic story about schoolgirls disappearing in the bush.
SUN 17 AUG | 1PM | Arc Cinema | $21/$18
1975 | PG | 118 mins | 35mm | AUS | D: Peter Weir
On a Valentine’s Day picnic at Hanging Rock, three schoolgirls and a teacher from exclusive Appleyard College mysteriously disappear.
Peter Weir’s original pan-pipes-and-white-dresses take on Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel is just as eerie and mysterious 50 years on.
“One of the most hauntingly beautiful mysteries ever created on film.” – San Francisco Chronicle
The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the novel with special guest TBC.
The Joy Luck Club
Chinese American mothers and daughters grapple with migration, trauma, love and history.
SUN 21 SEP | 1PM | Arc Cinema | $21/$18
1993 | M | 139 mins | DCP | US | D: Wayne Wang
The interwoven stories of four Chinese American mothers who reflect on the traumatic history that caused them to leave China, while their daughters grapple with the demands of American life.
Amy Tan collaborated in the adaptation of her best-selling novel for the screen in a script that packs an emotional punch.
“If The Joy Luck Club doesn’t make you cry, nothing will. In an age of contrived and mechanical sentimentality, its deeply felt, straight-from-the-heart emotions and the unadorned way it presents them make quite an impact. No matter how many hankies you bring with you, it won’t be enough.” – Los Angeles Times
The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the memoir with special guest Alice Pung OAM.
Battle Royale
Dystopian thriller in which teens fight to the death in a near-future Japan.
SUN 19 OCT | 1PM | Arc Cinema | $21/$18
2000 | R18+ | 122 mins | DCP | JPN | D: Kinji Fukasaku
In a drastic measure to curb juvenile delinquency, 42 armed high school students are sent to a remote island to eliminate each other until there is only one survivor.
Based on Koushun Takami's 1999 novel, which popularised the deadly survival game theme long before The Hunger Games or Squid Game, this dark, violent and twisted film also offers an uncomfortable portrayal of adolescent pain.
"It’s a movie that never lets you settle down, zipping between satire and splatter, offering moments that will make the most hardened viewer cringe and snatches of quiet melancholy that will haunt you for a long time.” – Empire
The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the novel with special guest TBC.
Contact
Alien contact drama that takes on questions of God and science.
SUN 16 NOV | 1PM | Arc Cinema | $21/$18
1997 | PG| 150 mins | DCP | US | D: Robert Zemeckis
When alien intelligence contacts Earth, Dr Eleanor Arroway (Jodie Foster), a radio astronomer working on the SETI project, picks up the signal – included in it are blueprints for building an advanced spacecraft.
Based on Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, the film combines science, politics and religion to ask the big questions about our place in the universe.
“Contact is that rare big-budget motion picture that places ideas, characters and plot above everything else.” – ReelViews
The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the novel with special guest James Bradley OAM.
Adaptation
Zany postmodern comedy-drama about the process of adaptation itself.
SUN 7 DEC | 1PM | Arc Cinema | $21/$18
2002 | MA15+ | 116 mins | DCP | US | D: Spike Jonze
Meta narratives abound in this self-reflective film about screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage), who’s trying to adapt Susan Orlean’s (played by Meryl Streep) non-fiction book The Orchid Thief for the screen.
As Charlie writes, he finds he’s putting himself into the script, not to mention his twin brother Donald (also played by Cage), who’s successfully writing a screenplay using the Hollywood formula Charlie is trying to avoid.
“Screenwriting this smart, inventive, passionate and rip-roaringly funny is a rare species. It's magic.” – Rolling Stone
The screening will be followed by a discussion of the film and the Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief with special guest TBC.
