Revhead rivalry, teenage angst and romantic tragedy spill onto the streets in Metal Skin, a gritty, stylish and criminally undersung gem from Romper Stomper director Geoffrey Wright. Joe (Aden Young), a lonely and timid teenager living in the Melbourne suburb of Altona with his ailing father, finds an escape in his passion for muscle cars. After starting work a supermarket warehouse, Joe soon lands in a twisted web of lust and hard feelings between his womanising coworker Dazey (Ben Mendelsohn), his high school sweetheart Roslyn (Nadine Garner) and the unstable Satanist Savina (Tara Morice). One fateful night of drag racing sets off a chain reaction that will change their lives forever.

A strange, sad portrait of alienated youth painted with lurid colours, grimy industrial wastes and roaring engines, Metal Skin hits with a uniquely arresting intensity and a gutful of melancholy thanks to a stellar cast and some truly remarkable experimental editing; constantly portending a terrible fate by mashing future, past and present together at a disorienting and utterly gripping pace. Although it divided critics as it met an ill fate at the local box office back in 1994, we’re pleased to revisit this idiosyncratic gem of Australian cinema – now looking better than ever in a rich 2K restoration.

Kate Vinen is an award-winning filmmaker whose films have screened in festivals, on streaming platforms and in galleries and biennales. A graduate of the Masters in Screen at AFTRS, her short film Acts for the Invisible (2021) premiered at the Sydney Film Festival and won Best Documentary at the CILECT CAPA Awards. Her short drama Hopeful Romantic (2022) premiered at Flickerfest, winning five awards including Best Film at the Australian Women's Film Festival. She is an alumna of the Adelaide Film Festival Expand Lab and Playlab Films Creators Lab, and is currently co-directing the feature documentary Consensual with Media Stockade. In her spare time she programs films for Festivals, moderates filmmaker panels, and teaches film.