Hanna (Julia Garner) is backpacking across Australia with her best friend Liv (Jessica Henwick). Running low on funds, they decide that a job tending bar in an Outback mining town might be a lark — the job comes with free lodging, after all, and not a little booze. The owner, Billy (Hugo Weaving) does his best to keep the rowdy regulars in order, but then again he’s always drunk himself. Beer culture in a place like this is always going to be a wild ride, but the young women have no idea just how quickly the bottom can drop out of their world. This deeply unsettling film is inspired by a true story — or, more accurately, many true stories. Director and co-writer Kitty Green comes from a documentary background and just as she did with her acclaimed 2019 #MeToo drama The Assistant (also with Julia Garner), Green exactingly grounds the material in the real world. But that’s not to say this cautionary tale is anything less than gripping. Expect a vertiginous decline in Australian tourism.
A masterfully constructed pressure cooker about the perils of being a woman… Few movies have ever so palpably or intricately conveyed the violent pall of male attention.
David Ehrlich, Indiewire
Jessica Henwick, Julia Garner, Hugo Weaving, Bree Bain, Toby Wallace
Australia/UK
2023
Showcase
English
Sexual Violence
At The Park
At The Rio
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Simon Gillis
Producer
Emile Sherman, Liz Watts, Iain Canning, Kath Shelper
Screenwriter
Kitty Green, Oscar Redding
Cinematography
Michael Latham
Editor
Kasra Rassoulzadegan
Production Design
Leah Popple
Original Music
Jed Palmer
Director
Kitty Green
Kitty Green was born in Melbourne. Her works include the documentaries Ukraine is Not a Brothel (2013) and Casting JonBenet (2017), as well as the narrative feature The Assistant (2019).
Filmography: Ukraine is Not a Brothel (2013); Casting JonBenet (2017); The Assistant (2019)
Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre
The History of Concrete
After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
I Am Not a Witch
Rungano Nyoni's acclaimed debut feature is a visually striking satire about a 9-year-old orphan accused of witchcraft in contemporary Zambia. Screening in the latest African Cinema Now! series, The Witch at the Edge of the Screen.
Akashi
In Mayumi Yoshida’s tender drama, struggling artist Kana journeys to Tokyo to attend her grandmother’s funeral. While there, she reconnects with her childhood love and stumbles across a family secret that prompts her to reconsider her place in the world.
Queen at Sea
An academic is pitted against her stepfather in a moral crisis over the care of her mother, who lives with dementia. Winner of the Silver Bear Jury Prize and Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the 2026 Berlinale.
Image: © Seafaring