It’s back! The Sydney Film Festival has announced the first 26 titles of its 2018 line-up, with some award winners, new favourites, international and Australian classics peppering the first 10% of a program that promises over 250 titles between 6-17 June 2018.
Headliners and award-winners
Of the many award-winning animated films we didn’t get to see last year, the one we wanted to see the most was THE BREADWINNER, about a young Afghan girl who must dress as a boy to make money for her family. The Sundance Grand Jury winner THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST comes with all of the buzz, being a comedy-drama set in a “gay conversion” camp. This one is bound to sell out immediately. It stars Chloë Grace Moretz and American Honey‘s breakout star Sasha Lane.
A Fantastic Woman‘s Sebastián Lelio’s new film DISOBEDIENCE is about the love affair between two women (Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams) in an Orthodox Jewish community.
With LEAVE NO TRACE, Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone, SFF 2010) returns with a drama about a father and daughter who are found by authorities after living off-grid in the wilderness for years.
We’re very excited by GHOST STORIES, an anthology of terrifying tales by Jeremy Dyson (The League of Gentlemen) and Andy Nyman (Dead Set).
Of interest to our Asia in Focus section, Thai filmmaker Pen-ek Ratanaruang returns with some film noir in the thriller SAMUI SONG.
Australian focus
WEST OF SUNSHINE has undergone a few title changes since we first started talking about it as Father’s Day, but Jason Raftopoulos’ Melbourne-shot film has been making some noise since its Venice debut last year.
There’s also a retrospective screening of the classic MY BRILLIANT CAREER, digitally restoring Gillian Armstrong’s 1979 film featuring Judy Davis’ debut performance on screen.
There’s also two Australian docos announced so far. I USED TO BE NORMAL: A BOYBAND FANGIRL STORY follows four Melbourne women whose lives were changed forever by their love of respective boybands Backstreet Boys, One Direction, Take That and The Beatles. In ROCKABUL, Australian musician, journalist and debut director Travis Beard travels to Afghanistan to cover their only metal band.
Stranger than fiction
People will be talking for a long time about COLD BLOODED: THE CLUTTER FAMILY MURDERS, which recreates the killings that inspired Truman Capote’s bestseller In Cold Blood. the Our tummies are already rumbling for CHEF FLYNN, which is filmmaker Cameron Yates’ chronicle of teenage culinary sensation Flynn McGarry’s rapid ascent from the home kitchen to the cover of New York Times Magazine.
It couldn’t be further from GENESIS 2.0, which has nothing to do with Phil Collins. Instead, as the Special Jury Award winner at Sundance, it connects Siberian hunters of woolly mammoth remains with cutting edge 21st century cloning technology. Then Lorna Tucker turns her eye to designer Vivienne Westwood in WESTWOOD: PUNK, ICON, ACTIVIST.
Sitting somewhere between reality and fiction is Bart Layton’s AMERICAN ANIMALS, a docu-fiction hybrid about four young men who attempt one of the most audacious art-heists in history.
You can check out the rest of the titles, and maybe buy a flexipass or two, from the sff.org.au website. You’ll also find the other films already announced as part of the Essential Kaurismäki: Selected by David Stratton program.
The full festival program to be revealed in May. The SFF has already hinted that there will be over 250 films and in excess of 150 local and international guests to keep us entertained.
