If it feels like we just did this, that’s because, well, we did. Just five months on from the last Gold Coast Film Festival (the date has been changed to tie in with the Supanova Pop Culture Expo), an eager crowd gathered again at Australia Fair to laugh at Chairman Richard Featherstone’s jokes and watch a buzzworthy international film. This time around, it was ‘Iron Sky’, a Finnish-German-Australian production (partly filmed in QLD) about Nazis from the moon.

It’s every bit as fun as it sounds, and though the script occasionally feels like it was written by an excitable child, the special effects gloriously showcase what can be done with a limited budget and unlimited ingenuity. Certainly, it was the perfect choice to herald the festival’s reinvention as a celebration of pop culture, and it was great to see charismatic leading man Christopher Kirby in attendance at the screening (and at Stingray Lounge’s swanky afterparty).

It’s a shame we’ll have to wait a full twelve months to do it all again, but luckily, there are a number of gems still to screen this weekend.

Highlights include:

‘Blackthorn’ (Thu Apr 26, 6:30pm) — A full-blooded Western adventure starring Sam Shepard as an ageing Butch Cassidy.

Irvine Welsh’s ‘Ecstasy’ (Fri Apr 27, 7:15pm) —  A dark romantic comedy from the author of ‘Trainspotting’.

‘The Cabin In The Woods’ (Fri Apr 27, 9:15pm) — Joss Whedon (‘The Avengers’, ‘Serenity’) reinvents the horror genre.

‘Safe’ (Sun Apr 27, 8pm) — Jason Statham does what he does best and brings the curtain down on the festival.

For more info, head to gcfilmfestival.com. Read our Supanova review on page 9.