Lust-filled and lustrous, That Old Dream That Moves depicts the final days of a factory in the south of France whose machines are being shipped out, while the men are left behind. When a young specialist arrives to dismantle one of the mysterious contraptions, he catches the eye of the other, older workers, giving rise to an erotically charged triangle of frustrated longings. As ever, writer-director Alain Guiraudie inhabits a rural France rarely seen in cinema, in this wryly comic and profoundly melancholy meditation on desire and the passing of time.

The breakthrough film of Alain Guiraudie, That Old Dream That Moves was hailed as ‘the film of the festival’ by Jean-Luc Godard when it premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2001. This celebrated though rarely exhibited early work contains many of its director’s signature habits in full bloom, and structurally anticipates his erotic psycho-thriller Stranger by the Lake (2013). Teasing at the sensuous borders of the real and the fantastical, the spiritual and the material, That Old Dream That Moves dips into mythical and fairytale modes to enact a vision of queer sexuality that is refreshingly matter-of-fact – all the while moving at a beguiling, languid pace.

Fireflies is a film magazine created between Berlin and Melbourne, and read around the world. Each issue, a curated assembly of critics, artists and filmmakers celebrates the work of two contemporary filmmakers through rigorous and playful new forms of criticism – hybrid essays, poetry, visual art and fiction – alongside longform interviews with the directors, in a beautiful print artefact.

Venturing to Sydney once more, Fireflies is delighted to launch its sixth issue – devoted to Alain Guiraudie and Albert Serra. Featuring contributions from Dennis Lim, Erika Balsom, Wayne Koestenbaum & Bruce Hainley, Luc Moullet, Peter Polites, Michael Koresky, CAConrad, Luise Donschen, Paul Dalla Rosa, Howard Hampton, Cruising Pavilion, and more.