The Sydney Film Festival‘s 70th anniversary program has been announced, and as usual it has us all scrambling to fit our winter calendars around screenings. From Wes Anderson to Kore-eda Hirokazu, heavy hitters sit alongside debuts and the obscure.
So, where to start? What to pick? Do you rush to get bragging rights on seeing that movie first? Or do you try and earn that ‘most obscure’ tag on your Letterboxd? It’s a Choose Your Own Adventure where the answer is always a movie. Sounds about right to me.
Here an assorted grab bag of some films that I am especially excited about — and may have already booked tickets to see!
Monster
Kore-eda Hirokazu. Is that not enough to have you buying all the tickets? The director of Shoplifters and Broker guarantees this a spot on must-see lists everywhere — especially when he’s got Sakura Ando in the cast. Here he explores childhood trauma in a way that only the director of Nobody Knows could accomplish.
Scarygirl
Animation picks are curious at this year’s SFF, with this Australian debut sitting alongside Disney’s Elemental, Liu Jian’s Art College 1994 and the Murakami-inspired Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (see below). Still, this Australian debut about a girl with a tentacle for an arm features the voices Jillian Nguyen, Sam Neill, Deborah Mailman, Tim Minchin, Rob Collins and Liv Hewson. Directors Ricard Cussó and Tania Vincent break free of possums, quokkas, and wombats to deliver some gorgeous animation that seems ready to fill that Coraline-sized hole in our hearts.
Lost in the Night
Speaking of tentacles, a few years ago I had the distinct pleasure of sitting in a crowded cinema to watch The Untamed. It’s a film I called an “intense, erotic, unnerving and wholly enveloping study about escaping cycles of violence and abuse glimpsed through the prism of sci-fi/horror.” Director Amat Escalante’s (Narcos: Mexico) highly anticipated feature follow-up is a Mexican thriller following a man taking justice into his own hands in the search for his missing mother.
The New Boy
The prolific Warwick Thornton is always a must-see at any festival, and after a few years working in television (Mystery Road, The Beach, Firebite) he returns to the big screen for the first time since Sweet Country (2017). Starring Cate Blanchett, Deborah Mailman, Wayne Blair, and newcomer Aswan Reid, the 1940s-set film follows a young Aboriginal boy (Reid) who lands in a monastery run by zealot Sister Eileen (Blanchett).
The Dark Emu Story
Bruce Pascoe’s book Dark Emu started a lot of conversations around how we as a country view our history. As some embraced the reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for precolonial Aboriginal Australians, some conservative (social) media really seemed to struggle with the concepts. Yet as Pascoe says “The crucial point is that we have never discussed it as a nation.” Allan Clarke’s documentary looks at the public conversation this book inspired, and crucially provides a platform for First Nations voices.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Haruki Murakami’s short stories have proven to be fertile ground for cinema, with adaptations ranging from Burning to the award-winning Drive My Car (both of which played SFF in 2018 and 2021 respectively). So, with BLIND WILLOW, SLEEPING WOMAN, director Pierre Földes uses the 2011 earthquake as a focal point for stories about a talkative frog, a lost cat, an existential banker — and more strangeness. One for fans of animation, Japanese literature, and surrealism in equal measure.
Cobweb
Another one straight from Cannes, Parasite fans are sure to love seeing Song Kang-ho alongside Im Soo-jung and Oh Jung-se as action director Kim Jee-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters, I Saw the Devil, Illang: The Wolf Brigade) takes a turn into comedy! This film about filmmaking takes us back to 1970s where director Kim Ki-yeol (Song) tries to complete his masterpiece in a short amount of time while everything around him turns to chaos. What a perfect film for a festival.
Little Richard: I Am Everything
There’s a tradition in our household: a music documentary at SFF each year. The 2023 edition doesn’t disappoint, examining the queer Black origins of rock ’n’ roll via this icon of sound and stage. Interviews with Richard and his family sit alongside chats with Billy Porter, John Waters, Mick Jagger, and a whole stack of performance footage. Wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom!
Screenability program
This is a bit of a cheat as it isn’t a single film but three features and as many shorts. Back for an seventh year, Screenability is designed to showcase films by filmmakers with disability in a festival context. It focuses on the participation of underrepresented groups in the screen industry. This year sees the premieres of SXSW Grand Jury Prize-winning ANGEL APPLICANT, documentary IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?, and THE TUBA THIEVES, described as a “fiction-non-fiction exploration of sound.” Each of these is paired with the world premieres of three Australian short films. If history is a guide, then these will be some of the gems of the whole festival.
Asteroid City
Look, it’s due out in cinemas less than two weeks after its SFF debut. Still, we know you Wes Anderson fans will not be able to wait that long to see, gush about, and turn his latest joints into a series of delightful memes. Cast is, unsurprisingly, stacked: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Steve Carrell, Maya Hawke, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, and Margot Robbie to name a few.
in water
It isn’t a festival unless you’re seeing at least one Hong Sang-soo joint. At one hour long, this bite-sized package is sure to feature some familiar motifs (a young director and two friends spend the weekend on an island!), cast members (Shin Seok-ho! Ha Seong-guk!) and beverages (Soju!). Hell, the publicity shot for this has a film crew on a beach. By the way, don’t adjust your glasses: that is intentionally out of focus.
The 70th edition of the Sydney Film Festival runs from 8 – 18 June 2023 at various locations around Sydney. Check out their website for a full program and tickets.
