Sydney Film Festival: 'Beautiful Things'

Winner of the NEXT: WAVE Award at CPH:DOX, and Best Italian Film at Venice, Beautiful Things is an exquisite meditation on consumerism and waste. Multihyphenate creatives Giorgio Ferrero (composer, director and photographer) and Federico Biasin’s (cinematographer, producer and filmmaker) hybrid documentary is structured in four parts: Oil, Cargo, Measure and Ash. Each act focuses on a worker in a distinct isolated environment: a maintenance man on US oilrigs; a Filipino in the bowels of a supertanker; an Italian scientist in his echo-free chamber (blocking out the sounds of the world); and finally, a waste plant operative. Creation, transport, marketing and destruction – it’s a global chain of obsessive consumption. Visually arresting, with a striking soundscape, 'Beautiful Things' is also a compelling meditation on work and alienation.