Not since Robert de Niro first looked in the mirror and said "you talkin' to me" has the taxi driver made so much impact on screen.
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The 62nd Sydney Film Festival, which closed with a warm reception for Neil Armfield's Holding the Man on Sunday night, had cab drivers featuring everywhere in strong films.
Michael Caton played one in Last Cab To Darwin, director Jafar Panahi played another one in Tehran Taxi and there were two in Rakhshan Bani-Etemad's Tales – suggesting the festival should have chased Taxis Combined for sponsorship.
It proved to be an uber festival in terms of attendance, with a record attendance of 176,000 – up 13 per cent on last year's record of 156,000.
Helped by favourable dry weather, sold-out sessions at the 11 cinemas jumped from 112 to 133.
The numbers were boosted by two new venues – Dendy Newtown and Casula Powerhouse – plus the return of daytime screenings at the iconic State Theatre after the completion of nearby construction work.
General manager Leigh Small said it was the the eighth consecutive increase in attendance, with the talks program and Festival Hub also well patronised.
"We're elated with the numbers," she said.
In financial terms, Small said the festival had "made target" with box office up 9 per cent on last year.
After financially struggling only six years ago when a late $300,000 state government grant was necessary to go ahead, extra government and corporate support has returned the festival to what seems like excellent shape. A much more diverse audience is attending as screenings have expanded to the western suburbs, inner west and lower north shore.
Director Nashen Moodley, who has been re-appointed for another four years, delivered a warmly-received program with hardly a complaint to be heard.
The festival jury surprised again by selecting Miguel Gomes' Arabian Nights as the winner of the $62,000 competition for "courageous, audacious and cutting-edge" cinema. This writer rated five films higher in a strong field but the jury clearly responded to the crazy ambition, burning politics and wild imagination behind an uneven six-and-a-half-hour epic.
In eight years, the competition has now been won six times by European directors, with only French-Canadian Xavier Dolan (Heartbeats) and Iranian Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) breaking the streak.
Of the other prizes announced on Sunday night, director Sotiris Dounoukos dashed from the set of Joe Cinque's Consolation in Canberra to collect the Dendy live-action short award for A Single Body, with journalist Michael Ware and Bill Guttentag winning the $10,000 Australian documentary competition for the Iraq war film Only the Dead, with a special mention for Andrew Lancaster's The Lost Aviator.
Anthony Lawrence won the Yoram Gross Animation Award for Grace Under Water; Brooke Goldfinch the Rouben Mamoulian Award for Red Rover, and Darlene Johnson the Short Screenplay Award for Bluey.
A feature of the festival was the number of Australian world premieres of feature films and documentaries, including Ruben Guthrie on opening night, The Daughter and Sherpa in competition, Women He's Undressed on a cruise ship at Circular Quay and Last Cab To Darwin as a special presentation.
The inevitable glitches, including fire alarms emptying three George Street cinemas for 20 minutes and a false start for Holding The Man on closing night, were minor.
Small said all 11 venues would return next year with the festival evaluating further expansion.
"During the festival we've had requests left, right and centre [from new venues] but the core of the festival is about being in the CBD and being a festival that you can see and feel the attendance because of the shared experience and the ability to walk between all the venues and the Hub," she said. "We'll never lose that.
"But if we can increase presentation in other centres across Sydney, we'll look into it."
GARRY MADDOX'S TOP FILMS
Warm-hearted Australian drama Last Cab to Darwin
Revealing doco Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
Iran political drama Tehran Taxi
American indie charmer Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Australian Mt Everest documentary Sherpa
Livewire American iPhone film Tangerine
Eye-opening New York documentary The Wolfpack
Intense Australian drama The Daughter
Beach Boys story Love & Mercy
