Far from a relic of years gone by, black and white cinema is alive and gleaming. Recent examples include Australian director Jaydon Martin’s luminous documentary portrait of Bundaberg residents, Flathead, Agnieszka Holland’s startling refuge drama, Green Border, Miguel Gomes’ shimmering Grand Tour and whatever the heck is going in Mike Cheslik’s unhinged comedy, Hundreds of Beavers.
In honour of the form’s lustrous depth, we’ve assembled the for your enjoyment. Here’s a guide to a few of the gems twinkling within.
Leto
Embracing the Russian word for ‘summer’, stage and film director Kirill Serebrennikov’s footloose biopic of Zoopark frontman Mike Naumenko (portrayed by real-life rocker Roman Bilyk) and Russian-Korean Kino co-founder Viktor Tsoi (Decision to Leave lead Teo Yoo) tumbles headlong into early ‘80s Leningrad’s sweaty clubs and sandy beaches. Nominated for the Palme d’Or in 2018, this anti-establishment rapscallion tale can’t help but mirror the reality of its filmmaker, who spent several years under house arrest on fraud charges that were widely by the Kremlin.
Leto is streaming at SBS On Demand.
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Leto
biography • drama • 2018
biography • drama • 2018
A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino
While colour began its long road towards usurping black and white film as early as the turn of the 20th century, it wasn’t until the back half of the ‘60s that the former became the norm. Filipino filmmaker Lamberto V. Avellana’s big screen adaptation of Nick Joaquin’s beloved play, symbolising the switch from Spanish colonial culture towards the US/Hollywood, was one of the key Asian films holding the line in this era. Shot in Biñan but set in the old walled city of Manilla pre-World War II, it’s an intimately theatrical film centred on one well-to-do household falling into ruin as celebrated painter Don Lorenzo Marasigan (Pianing Vidal) holes up in his room, much to the consternation of his daughters (Daisy H. Avellana and Naty Crame-Rogers). They rent a room to handsome troublemaker Tony Javier (Conrad Parham), while various opportunistic folks circle a much sought-after self-portrait of Don’s.
A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino
drama • 1965
drama • 1965
Black Girl
The revolutionary work of Senegalese filmmaker and author Ousmane Sembène, oft-dubbed “the father of African cinema”, significantly impacted Western directors, including Martin Scorsese. Sembène’s sparkling 1966 debut feature traces the journey of young maid Diouana (Mbissine Thérèse Diop) from Dakar to Antibes, where she had hoped for a better lot but is soon desperate to escape the sneering clutches of her snooty French employers (Robert Fontaine and Anne-Marie Jelinek). Her fate echoes the abusive colonial grip Senegal had only recently shrugged off via independence in a captivating film with much to say about class and control. It stands tall on the shoulders of Diop’s electrifying performance.
Black Girl is streaming at SBS On Demand.
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Black Girl
drama • 1966
drama • 1966
Frantz
Perhaps best known for the effervescent fizz of his steamiest stories, embracing the queer in more ways than one, French filmmaker François Ozon is not shy of tackling more challenging material, including 2018’s By the Grace of God, a searing exposé of child abuse within the Catholic church. Two years earlier, he embraced the sharp clarity of black and white with this Venice Golden Lion-nominated triumph set in the rubble of Germany’s failure following the Great War. Afire’s Paula Beer depicts a widower startled to encounter a French soldier (The Count of Monte-Cristo’s Pierre Niney) who also leaves flowers at her husband’s grave. So begins an emotional rollercoaster as the horrors of war come home.
Frantz is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Frantz
Historical drama • 2016
Historical drama • 2016
Afterglows
Starting out in music videos, Japanese filmmaker Taichi Kimura has a keen eye for viscerally felt detail, which helps steer this aching-hearted story of loss through twists and swirls into something much darker that anyone who has experienced trauma will understand. Dancer-turned-actor Kentez Asaka stars as a cab driver grieving the suicide of his girlfriend (prolific anime vocal actor Megumi Hayashibara) who tunes out to the radio essay of the film’s title, lost in a reverie reliving their time together. But as he increasingly loses his grip, the waking dreams become more nightmarish, bleeding into reality in troubling ways in this startling first feature.
Afterglows is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Afterglows
romance • 2023
romance • 2023
Mami Wata
Nigerian filmmaker CJ ‘Fiery’ Obasi channels David Lynch and Akira Kurosawa to deliver an astoundingly fantastical mythological musing. Rita Edochie towers with matriarchal power as Mama Efe, a faith healer who has resisted the encroach of modern medicine to keep her village faithful to the old ways, worshipping the water spirit of the title. But when she cannot or will not help a young child, it draws a divide between her daughters (Uzoamaka Aniunoh and Evelyne Ily Juhen), who argue over supporting her. The conflict is exacerbated by the arrival of an outsider, Emeka Amakeze’s Jasper, who comes with a modernising promise in this surrealist tale that’s as powerfully hypnotic as the crashing waves.
Mami Wata is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Mami Wata
adventure • drama • 2023
adventure • drama • 2023
Ida
Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski’s feature pulls back the Iron Curtain on the country of his birth in the austere 1960s, though the opening moments could be set in any century as we’re introduced to Agata Trzebuchowska’ Anna, a novice nun preparing to take her vows in the convent where she was abandoned as a babe. But first, she is sent out into the world, into the arms of her chain-smoking and heavy-drinking Aunt Wanda (the mighty Agata Kulesza), a Communist prosecutor long fallen from favour. But a big secret is unfurled on arrival that upends all that Anna believes. The road trip that follows is a remarkable journey in an illuminating film about faith, family and the forces that would try to obliterate lives on that basis.
Ida is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Ida
drama • 2013
drama • 2013
Beijing Spring
Whatever era a film was shot in, something about black and white footage lends it a timeless quality. That’s amplified when the subject is a moment of great upheaval, captured as if in amber. So it is with co-directors Gaylen Ross and Andy Cohen’s rousing documentary, assembled from 16mm footage of the Stars activist artist group’s illegal exhibition posted on an iron fence outside the National Museum of China during the Beijing Spring, the brief period of creative freedom and protest that followed the death of Mao Zedong. The police crackdown that followed sparked a rally that grew and grew. The footage captured that day was thought lost but had, in fact, been secreted away for decades. Re-awoken, the resulting film is a testament to their bravery.
Beijing Spring is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Beijing Spring
