Dendy Newtown will host ‘All Night Cine-Love In’, a late night marathon of movies that have been especially curated as part of Sydney Film Festival. Screening from 10pm to through to 7.30am from 8-9 June, it’s been curated by Festival Program Manager, Jenny Neighbour, who celebrates her 30th Festival with 4 weird and wonderful films that changed her cinematic world view. “These films hark back to my time as an arts student in London in the early ’80s and discovering the capital’s legendary Scala Cinema – a true movie treasure trove, from the days when films weren’t accessible online or even in stores. It’s there I discovered that films could be provocative, trashy, surreal, troubling, and not always in English,” she says.
As the Head of Programs & Documentary Programmer for the annual Sydney Film Festival, Jenny is responsible for programming documentaries and short films as well as taking the lead on the First Nations program and working closely with the Festival Director on the curation of retrospective and special focus strands. She also manages the festival’s programming teams, working closing with the curators of the Freak Me Out, Flux, Animation, Family, Education, Retrospectives and Screenability strands, and the festival’s Film Advisory Panel. Each year she travels to international festivals (Berlinale, Goteborg, IDFA, and this year ImagineNative) to view films for consideration for the festival program, and to meet with sales agents, producers and other content providers to promote the festival and secure films for Sydney Film Festival.
“With 30 Sydney Film Festivals under my belt, I wanted to celebrate that time; the moment when cinema truly opened its doors to me,” she said. “This All Night Cine-Love In may change your cinematic world, and if it doesn’t… well, it’s going to be a great night at the movies.”
Screening at the all-night session are legendary filmmaker David Lynch’s cult classic Eraserhead (1977); and one of the most controversial films in cinema history, radical Japanese director Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (1976). Golden Globe-nominated actor Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) stars in O Lucky Man! (1973) and the fabulously foul Divine stars in John Waters’ low budget trash spectacular Female Trouble (1974).
More about the films:
ERASERHEAD David Lynch’s 1977 cult classic almost defies description: beautiful yet strange, filled with dark humour, gore and eroticism, all wrapped up in glorious black and white imagery.
In a grungy dystopian age, the nerdish Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) is invited to dinner by his bizarre girlfriend, Mary X (Charlotte Stewart) to meet her parents. It’s a very strange evening, featuring the now-infamous spurting chickens and a peculiar premature ‘baby’. The young couple take the squealing bundle home, but Mary soon departs leaving Henry to handle the nightmarish nipper alone. What follows has been described as indescribable – suffice to say it’s brilliant! Lynch’s debut feature was made over several years on a shoestring budget. Shot by the great Frederick Elmes (Blue Velvet) with an amazing soundscape of industrial noise and Fats Waller music, Eraserhead is a cinematic world like no other.
IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES One of the most controversial films in cinema history, this uncompromising 70s study of sexual obsession from radical director Nagisa Oshima is based on a true incident. 
A servant and former geisha, Sada (Eiko Matsuda), becomes sexually obsessed with her married employer, a businessman called Kizochi (Tatsuya Fuji). He in turn becomes captivated with her, until their every waking hour is spent making love. However, as the relationship intensifies, their sexual acts become more and more dangerous and aggressive, cumulating in a shockingly fatal undertaking. Oshima’s (Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence) taboo-breaking film, notorious for its actual sex scenes, was screened at the 1977 Sydney Film Festival, but was subsequently cut by the censors and given an R- rating. Decades after its initial release Ai No Corrida (literally translated as ‘bullfight of love’) retains the power to provoke and offend.
O LUCKY MAN! Malcolm McDowell stars in this more-than-twisted tale of a man’s rise to the top (and down again) by UK Free Cinema legend Lindsay Anderson. 
Anderson’s debut film, If, was a scorching critique of 1960s Britain and his follow-up, O Lucky Man! doesn’t pull any punches either. McDowell plays Mick, a principled young man who travels the country, encountering corruption everywhere, from genetic engineering to gunrunning. Mick soon joins in with the capitalist fun, before falling foul of the crooked system. Chock-full of venom and sour British humour, O Lucky Man! features a brilliant soundtrack from Alan Price (ex-The Animals, he also appears in the film) and menacing imagery from Miroslav Ondříček (Amadeus). Helen Mirren, who starred alongside McDowell, said she “loved” Anderson because he was always, “the pepper in the arse of the establishment” – one can’t help but agree!
FEMALE TROUBLE John Waters’ 1974 low budget trash spectacular, starring the fabulously foul Divine, oozes camp and depraved splendour. “Demolishes the boundaries of good taste”! 
Female Trouble is a biopic of a debauched criminal Dawn Davenport (Divine, aka Harris Glenn Milstead) from her wild-child days to the electric chair. Along the way, Dawn conceives a child, Taffy (Mink Stole), grosses out the modelling world, and finds notoriety before succumbing to a shocking end. Divine, arrayed with mega-cosmetic effects and weird-as outfits, is magnificently anarchic. The ‘Auteur of Outrage’, Waters (who has been quoted as calling this his own favourite film), pokes fun at femininity, family and fame (not to mention Hollywood). If you’ve never seen Female Trouble, sign up now: if you have, prepare to be schlocked anew!
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