Showing at the Library of Congress

Wake in Fright, a.k.a. Outback (NLT Productions - Group W Films, Australia/U.S., 1971). Dir Ted Kotcheff. Wrt Evan Jones, from the novel by Kenneth Cook. With Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence, Chips rafferty, Sylvia Kay, Jack Thomspon. (96 min, color, 35mm)

with:

Frightmare [Trailer] (1974). (2 min, color, 35mm)
Love and Bullets [Trailer] (1979). (2 min, color, 35mm)
Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary [Trailer] (1975). (2 min, color, 35mm)

and:

Small Apartment (Andrew T. Betzer Films, 2008). Dir: Andrew T. Betzer. With Alex Wasinski, Alexandre Marouani, Julia Fragias. (8 min, color, 35mm)

John Grant is a mild mannered young schoolteacher in the desolate Australian outback town of Tiboonda. Summer vacation occurs and John is taking leave to heavily populated Sydney, where his girlfriend awaits. Along the way, he must stop in the town of Bundanyabba (or "Yabba") to catch a flight. Once there, John encounters a clan of people unlike anything he has ever known. They are charming people who inhale alcohol in equal quantities as they do air. Men who are quickly prone to violence and derive pleasure in it, including their main joy of hunting and slaughtering kangaroos. John slowly finds himself slipping further and further into the madness of his surroundings.

Controversial and unsettling, the highly praised Wake in Fright is often named by Aussie critics as "The Greatest of Australian Film Achievements". It was nominated for the Golden Palm at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival. The script was penned by Evan Jones (Eva, These Are the Damned, King & Country) from the award winning novel by Kenneth Moore. Directed by Ted Kotcheff, who went on to a long and extremely successful career directing such films as First Blood, North Dallas Forty, and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Wake in Fright is a difficult film to see as all but a handful of prints have been lost or are incomplete. The print that will be screened tonight is an original in excellent condition.

Preceded by a selection of trailers and the short Small Apartment . In the latter, a middle-aged man, his son, and daughter-in-law explore love and perversion in 700 square feet of space. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 South By Southwest Film Festival.