Bards in the Wilderness (Brian Elliott & Adrian Mitchell 1970)

Call this research. I'm not reading a lot just now, but dipping into this. How Times Have Changed.

SFF: Twenty Feet from Stardom (Morgan Neville 2012)

This was the feelgood final movie of the Sydney Film Festival, and it did the job very well.

SFF: The Past (Asghar Farhadi 2013)

Another complex film about a troubled marriage the Iranian director of A Separation, though this time it's a divorce and set in France. The large contingent of Iranians at the SFF screening laughed in places the rest of us didn't, but I don't think anyone saw it as a rom com.

SFF: Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films

Ten movies are screened. Three awards are given. Too much excellence. Another screening tomorrow morning, and the awards are announced tomorrow night. The suspense is overwhelming.

Alex Ryan: Ngurrumbang

Brendon McDonall:
All God's Creatures

David Lyons:Record

Isabel Peppard: Butterflies

Jaime Lewis: Ravage

Jim Batt: I Have Your Heart

Maziar Lahooti: Heaven

Miranda Nation: Perception

Nicholas Verso:
The Last Time I Saw Richard

Simon Rippingale:
A Cautionary Tail

SFF: The Attack (Ziad Doueiri 2012)

'We are not Islamists or Christian fanatics. We are a ravaged people fighting for our dignity.' A successful Arab Israeli surgeon discovers that his wife has been a suicide bomber. There are many implausibilities, and some messaginess, but it's a complex and challenging movie.

SFF: Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski 2013)

A period piece set in the early 80s, with bulky computers churning out code, an encounter group, scary swingers, quaint sexism: part mockumentary, part science fiction, funny in a deadpan way, from Austin, the cool part of Texas.

SFF: Yapawarnti Palu Rijikarrijani (Kai Raisbeck 2012)

The English for the title is 'Children Playing', and that's what this wonderful short film is – children of the remote Aboriginal community of Yakanarrashowing the world their country and how they play in it.

SFF: The Human Scale (Andreas Dalsgaard 2012)

A lucid five-part essay on urban planning that goes to Copenhagen, Chongqing, Dacca, Melbourne, Christchurch, seen from the perspective of Danish architect urban design consultant Jan Gehl. 

SFF: The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear (Tinatin Gurchiani 2012)

Quintessential film festival fare: grim, disjointed, plenty of longueurs. Also an uneasy feeling that vulnerable people are being mocked.

TV: Restless (Edward Hall 2012)

An English historico-espionage two parter directed by someone who did a number of episodes of Spooks and Kingdom, among others, with Charlotte Rampling, Michael Gambon and the oldest daughter of Downton Abbey. What could go wrong?