Woooooh! My 2nd ever attendance at a film festival was marked on Sunday the 11th of August, 2013. This time with my Father.

We went to see ‘The East’, which is Zal Batmanglij’s masterful take on guerrilla-corporate espionage. I truly enjoyed this film. It was very different to ‘Manuscripts Don’t Burn’ and was set at a much higher pace – something I usually require to enjoy films. The fact that the cinema didn’t smell as weird as The Forum also made a difference.

Set in the present-day States, ‘The East’ follows the work of Sarah; an undercover operative for an elite private intelligence firm as she is tasked with infiltrating an guerrilla- anarchist group who undertake revenge-driven sabotage missions on major corporations. The group, fittingly called ‘The East’, is full of cast-out type individuals who avenge their own personal vendettas through the operations of the clandestine organisation.

The film’s tagline ‘Spy on us, we’ll spy on you’ (IMDB: The East) truly sums up the feel of the story as the audience wonders who knows what at which point in the storyline until the final, exciting climax where all is revealed.

An excellent film with sensational casting guaranteed to provoke thought. Might even make you wonder how much we should trust the big players in the business world right now. 4/5 stars.

Thank you Melbourne International Film Festival for another pleasant night, see you next year.