Red carpet rolls out for new Australian film Babyteeth

Even air kissing was off-limits at the COVID-safe opening night celebration.

Actress Eliza Scanlen on the red carpet at the Sydney premiere of Babyteeth on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

Sydney’s glitterati were not exactly out in force on Monday night, but the red carpet was rolled out — for the first time in months — for the premiere of new Australian film Babyteeth, with actress-of-the-moment Eliza Scanlen.

This was a gala screening COVID-style, with social distancing and hand sanitiser on tap at suburban cinema the Randwick Ritz. Paparazzi were limited to just three. And air-kissing and backslapping, ordinarily the ­social rituals of an opening night party, were forbidden.

Featuring Essie Davis, Ben Mendelsohn and newcomer Toby Wallace, Babyteeth had its pre-pandemic world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last year.

Sydney’s local premiere was necessarily on a much reduced scale, attended by Scanlen in the company of producers Alex White and Jan Chapman and other cast and crew who worked on the film. Davis and Mendelsohn could not attend because of travel restrictions.

Favourite local actors Hugo Weaving and Claudia Karvan were there to join the celebration.

In Babyteeth, Scanlen plays Milla, a teenager diagnosed with terminal cancer, who falls in love with a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, placed by Wallace.

Stephen Romei, writing in The Weekend Australian Review last Saturday, gave Babyteeth 3.5 stars and said Scanlen and Wallace bring the screen alive.

Scanlen is also known for her roles in TV miniseries Sharp ­Objects and last year’s remake of Little Women, directed by Greta Gerwig. She also appeared in the Broadway stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Behind the camera, she has made an award-winning short film, Mukbang, that premiered at the online Sydney Film Festival last month and provoked a war of words over its depiction of a South Korean food craze. Baby­teeth was the first local film premiere hosted by distributor Universal Pictures since the pandemic shut down cinemas and ­social gatherings in March.

Only 200 guests were invited to the screening in a theatre that otherwise can seat 800. In keeping with pandemic protocol, every second row was blocked, and seats were left vacant on ­either side of each guest.

Margaret Pomeranz hosted the event and led a Q&A session with Scanlen and producers White and Chapman before the film. A premiere in Brisbane, also on Monday night, was attended by director, Shannon Murphy.