It’s premiere time for footy film ‘This is Port Adelaide’
Adelaide Film Festival is set to premiere a new documentary celebrating 150 years of the Port Adelaide Football Club later this month, with past and present club heroes attending some of the special screenings.
Supporters at the Port Adelaide v Fremantle game at Adelaide Oval in August last year. Photo: Isaac Walgos
Although the biennial Film Festival closed on October 25, This is Port Adelaide received funding through the AFF Investment Fund and is part of the 2020 program.
It is directed by Adelaide-based Nicole Miller – whose credits include a 25-episode series called The AFL Show, which introduced the sport to a Chinese audience – and promises “passionate first-hand accounts from players and one-eyed supporters who bleed for the club”.
The weekend of world premiere screenings begins on November 27 with a gala event, to be followed by 11 further screenings on the next two days at the Odeon Cinema in Semaphore.
Port Adelaide media manager Daniel Norton said in a statement that the film is “a celebration of a club, a community and an irresistible united force like you’ve never seen before”.
“It is a remarkable story of highs and lows, underpinned by a shared football club and a surrounding community mantra of never, ever giving up,” he says.
“It is a story of unparalleled success that needed to be celebrated and captured in a feature-length film. It’s one of the great stories in Australian sport; the community football club who grew out of humble beginnings and became the only non-Victorian club to be elevated into the AFL.”
A special “Legends Screening” of This is Port Adelaide on November 29 will include a Q&A hosted by former Port Adelaide captain Tim Ginever and including ex-CEO Brian Cunningham and former champion player and coach Russell Ebert.
Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, including the fact that cinemas could only be filled to half-capacity, this year’s Adelaide Film Festival’s final box office result is expected to be around 20 per cent up on 2018.
Festival CEO and creative director Mat Kesting says wrapping it up with This is Port Adelaide is “a truly Adelaide way” to conclude the 2020 event.
“More than simply a football game, This is Port Adelaide is a universal story about what it means to belong,” Kesting says.
Details of the This is Port Adelaide screenings on November 28 and 29 can be found here. The gala screening on November 27 is not open to the public.
