Aussie acting superstar heading to Brisbane for International Film Festival
Brisbane’s International Film Festival is going ahead - and they’ve lured a high-profile name to the Sunshine State to be patron of the event.
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ACTOR Jack Thompson is Australian cinema’s most loveable larrikin and in a coup for Brisbane International Film Festival he has signed on as a patron of this year’s event.
BIFF 2020 is going ahead at QAGOMA and other venues from October 1 to 11 with the program released today.
It will be one of the first film festivals to test the waters after a year of COVID-19 cancellations.
Thompson, 80, who lives near Coffs Harbour with wife Leona, will serve alongside acclaimed film editor Jill Bilcock, 72, which makes it tempting to refer to them as Jack and Jill. But we won’t.
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There are nice synergies in their appointment particularly since both worked on the opening night film, High Ground, which airs Australia’s bloody history about a 1919 massacre of a Yolgnu tribe and its aftermath. Thompson, who stars in the film (which Bilcock edited) alongside leading man Simon Baker, says he’s looking forward to coming to Brisbane where he cut his teeth as an actor back in the 1960s.
“I was in the army at the time based at Yeronga and did amateur acting with Twelfth Night Theatre,” Thompson recalls. “I worked on stage in Brisbane with Michael Caton who likes to tell the story about how I was in the army and he was a windmill salesman. I can’t remember much about the plays we did but I know we were both in Hamlet.”
Thompson went on to study at UQ where he joined the Dramatic Society and eventually moved on to start a career as one of our most loved film actors starring in classics such as The Club, Sunday Too Far Away, The Man from Snowy River and Breaker Moran. he appeared in the Clint Eastwood directed Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in 1997 and was even in Star wars : Episode II - Attack of the Clones in 2002.
His larrikin legend was enhanced early on by the nude centrefold he posed for in Cleo magazine in 1972 and that image was then cemented by his slightly scandalous live-in relationship with sisters Le and Bunkie King, first revealed in 1974 by The Daily Telegraph in a story with the headline “Jack and his Jills.”
Filming High Ground, directed by Stephen Maxwell Johnson, in the Northern Territory was gruelling for Thompson who suffers from kidney disease and nearly died on location. He was saved by undergoing dialysis supplied by the Purple House dialysis service which treats Indigenous Australians in remote areas. Thompson’s experience featured in an episode of Australian Story on ABC TV and he hopes that shines a light on the health problems indigenous Australians face and the good work done by Purple House.
Thompson says he is keen to get to Brisbane for opening night “if I don’t need a passport to get into Queensland”.
“I’ve been isolating down here but I don’t mind because isolating is my default position,” Thompson says. He says he thrilled to be co-patron with Jill Bilcock whom he describes as “an editor’s editor”.
Bilcock, whose resume includes Strictly Ballroom, Elizabeth, Romeo + Juliet, The Dressmaker and scores of other acclaimed films says being a BIFF patron alongside Thompson is “a dream come true”.
“I mean everybody grew up watching Jack in movies,” Bilcock says. “He is so dedicated . I love the idea.”
QAGOMA director Chris Saines says having two such “celebrated screen industry veterans” on board is a treat.
“And we are looking forward to screening a selection of their career highlights in the festival,” Saines says.
Other highlights include the closing film, Firestarter : The Story of Bangarra Dance Theatre, a documentary about the evolution of Bangarra Dance Theatre and its artistic director Stephen Page, a Brizzie boy. That film is directed by Wayne Blair who also directed The Sapphires and Top End Wedding. There will be a wide selection of features and documentaries featured at BIFF this year including a restoration of the 1915 silent Italian film classic Filibus with live music played on the 1929 Wurlitzer organ at GOMA’s Australian Cinematheque. The GOMA Restaurant will feature a truffle infused menu during BIFF inspired by the film The Truffle Hunters which will also be screened at the festival.
More info: biff.com.au
