CULTPLEX Presents: The Australian Cult Weekender

We’re heading towards the hazy, tail-end of the summer but Cultplex are still bringing the heat. They’ve lined up a blistering weekend of cult Australian cinema that takes us from the petro-fuelled apocalyptic wastelands of Mad Max, to worlds filled with vicious gangsters, and eerie outback horrors. Across two days audiences are promised a glimpse into the darkest corners of this complicated country, while being introduced to some early turns from its biggest stars.

Included amongst the weekend are performances from Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman, Eric Bana and Heath Ledger, who provide reminders of the rich screen talent to emerge from Australia. But the real star of the show here are the harsh and haunted landscapes of the country itself. As the Cultplex programme notes put it: “for the past two hundred years many have sought to dominate this land and in Australian cinema the land is beginning to take its revenge.”

Included amongst the weekend are performances from Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman, Eric Bana and Heath Ledger, who provide reminders of the rich screen talent to emerge from Australia

Saturday’s films get off to a suitably extreme start with Eric Bana as the real-life Victoria gangster —  infamous for having a fellow inmate chop off his ears — in Andrew Dominik’s Chopper. That’s followed by another cult Australian icon as Mel Gibson gets behind the wheel in George Miller’s post-apocalyptic, action movie masterpiece, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.

Then there’s chance to get acquainted with an early Heath Ledger performance opposite Rose Byrne in 1999’s Two Hands, billed as part heist movie, part coming of age romance, before settling in for some killer boar action in Russell 1984 Mulcahy’s Ozploitation classic, Razorback.

On Sunday, the screenings start with Peter Weir’s classic 1975 adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock. A centrepiece of the Australian New Wave, this mesmeric mystery about schoolgirls who go missing on a school trip is considered amongst the country’s greatest films. Next, Cultplex lightens things up a little with some bicycle-based adventure as a young Nicole Kidman stars in 80s cult classic BMX Bandits.

Meanwhile, the weekend comes to a chilling conclusion when a mild-mannered teacher is stranded, broke and boozed-up in an outback mining town in Wake in Fright. Ted Kotcheff’s exploration of madness, masculinity and the national drinking culture didn’t please locals on release, but musician Nick Cave reckons it is “the best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence”.