As the grand old Dame of Sydney’s cinema scene turns 70, Stephen A Russell picks 15 of the hottest tickets at the Sydney Film Festival 2023.
Sydney Film Festival (SFF) artistic director Nashen Moodley is not messing around in assembling his mighty 70th-anniversary program. Running from June 7-18, this landmark line-up kicks off with an incredible coup, opening with Sweet Country director Warwick Thornton’s latest movie, The New Boy, jetting in straight from the Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.
Featuring Tár star Cate Blanchett as a rule-breaking nun concealing a big secret and introducing Aswan Reid as an Aboriginal boy who winds up in her orphanage, it’s bound to sell out in a heartbeat, so get booking.
Meanwhile, here are 15 more films we highly recommend.
Asteroid City
Speaking of Cannes coups, SFF has also scooped up The Grand Budapest Hotel maestro Wes Anderson’s latest paste-hued and cutely kooky dream centred on a stargazer convention interrupted by first contact in the dusty US desert. As ever, the cast list is too wild to rattle off in full, but includes regulars like Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Isle of Dogs alumna Scarlett Johansson alongside WA first-timers like Babylon‘s Margot Robbie.
Run Rabbit Run
Succession star Sarah Snook may not end up killing off her screen siblings in the battle to wrest control of bad daddy’s legacy in the hit HBO show, but she brings that final girl energy into her scream queen turn as a single mum on the edge in this Sundance midnight movie. Penned by Burial Rites author Hannah Kent and helmed by Daina Reid (The Handmaid’s Tale), it also features sometime Charles Manson, Damon Herriman, and Looking for Alibrandi’s Greta Scacchi as mommy dearest.
Jane Campion: The Cinema Woman
We love to claim Kiwis as our own, and given The Power of the Dog director Jane Campion worked closely with our Nicole, she’s practically Australian royalty. Which is why it’s fab that SFF has a comprehensive retrospective of Campion’s movies teed up this year. Also check out French director Julie Bertuccelli’s fascinating career profile of the first woman to take home the Palme d’Or, for 1993’s triple-Oscar-securing The Piano. Campion will appear in conversation with At the Movies presenter David Stratton.
The Dark Emu Story
With the debate around the Voice to Parliament predictably turning ugly and First Nations people thrown around like political footballs, far too often spoken about rather than to, this eye-opening doco is remarkably timed. Helmed by former NITV presenter and The Bowraville Murders director Allan Clarke, it tackles the stoush surrounding the best-selling non-fiction book Dark Emu, its challenging of the Australian story, and the identity battle thrust on its author Bruce Pascoe.
Passages
If you dug Love is Strange, get swept away by New Yorker Ira Sachs’ latest complicated romance. Switching to the astoundingly beautiful streets of Paris, Sachs casts the mercurially mischievous Franz Rogowski (grand in Great Freedom) as a selfish yet irresistibly sexy filmmaker who can’t quite decide between his long-term boyfriend, played by adorable Bond star Ben Whishaw, or Blue is the Warmest Colour’s radiant Adèle Exarchopoulos. Emotional mayhem ensues.
Hello Dankness
What connects the doofi of Wayne’s World to American Beauty’s Annette Bening via America’s sweetheart Tom Hanks? Our very own punk pop art filmmaking duo Soda_Jerk, that’s who. If you caught their Ozploitation mash-up movie Terror Nullius, you’ll know what to expect from this filmic Frankenstein’s monster that stitches clips from Friends, Sausage Party and A Nightmare on Elm Street together to hilariously sideswipe fake news and the inexorable rise (and fall) of Trump.
Late Night With the Devil
Australian horror is having a moment right now, what with A24 picking up Adelaide Film Festival hit Talk to Me, while this malicious morsel helmed by Melbourne brothers Colin and Cameron Cairns (100 Bloody Acres) wowed at SXSW. It offers a demonic twist on the found footage genre set in the cut and thrust of the late-night chat show world during the ‘70s. Wherever you sit on the James Corden is cute/the devil scale, chances are you’ll have a hella good time with this.
No Bears
Few filmmakers are as committed to the cause of cinema as fearless Iranian director Jafar Panahi. He smuggled his seminal doco This is Not a Film to Cannes on a hidden USB stick while under house arrest. Then wound up going to actual jail for speaking up in defence of other persecuted auteurs. A legend, he stars as a filmmaker caught in the centre of a community scandal in this line-blurring meditation on art and freedom that secured the Special Jury Prize at Venice.
On the Adamant
It may have been a surprise that stalwart French documentarian Nicolas Philibert took home the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale, but that’s not to say that his beautifully restrained documentary portrait of art’s ability to help those experiencing mental health challenges wasn’t incredibly worthy. He spent months on board the floating hospital moored on the Seine in the heart of Paris to chat with a coterie of day patients who find some sense of peace here. Beautiful stuff.
Shin Ultraman
If you want balls-to-the-wall-action with radioactive laser-loads of heartfelt and hard-earned nostalgia, turn to the team-up of director Shinji Higuchi and writer Hideaki Anno. They brought the big green meanie back to basics with the skyscraper-smashing Shin Godzilla and returned the favour for this beloved Japanese superhero. Mixing ’50s monster movie paranoia, sassy political commentary and righteously silly fun delivered with a straight face, it’s sure to be a hoot.
Past Lives
Astonishingly, almost one-third of Australians were born overseas. Many of us know what it feels like to have a foot in different worlds and sometimes feel torn between them. Korean-Canadian writer and debut director Celine Song gets it, summoning this aching Golden Bear-nominated romance that draws on her life story. Depicting a woman torn between her husband in New York and a childhood sweetheart from South Korea resurfaced, it’s a heart-starter told in three acts set 12 years apart.
Little Richard: I Am Everything
Much like his father, who was both a church deacon and speakeasy moonshine dealer, Richard Wayne Penniman AKA Little Richard AKA Princess LaVonne was a man of multitudes. A queer rock ‘n’ roll hero who smuggled bum sex into the charts in plain sight with the lyrics “Tutti Frutti, good booty,” but struggled in the limelight was waaaaaay ahead of his time. Documentarian Lisa Crortes assembles John Waters (Pink Flamingos), Mick Jagger, Billy Porter and more to sing his praises.
The Defenders
Celebrity sports folks can cop a bit of flack for their half-hearted support of charitable causes. Not former Socceroos Captain Craig Foster. He swung in strong behind Hakeem al-Araibi, a refugee who played for Victorian team Pascoe Vale after fleeing torture in his home country Bahrain. Ultimately granted Australian citizenship, horror struck years later when an improperly issued Interpol red notice landed him in a Thai prison awaiting extradition. Director Matthew Bate traces their fight for justice.
Blue Jean
If you dug Bill Nighy and George MacKay in Pride, you’ll likely swoon for British writer/director Georgia Oakley’s debut feature. Also set during Thatcher’s iron grip, the Conservative PM passed the hateful Section 28 bill, preventing state schools from ‘promoting’ homosexuality. That forces a newly out gym teacher Jean (Rosy McEwen from The Alienist rocking a bleach blonde Bowie crop) to keep her relationship with girlfriend Viv (Kerrie Hayes) undercover. Expect ’80s pop perfection.
Scarygirl
There’s plenty to pick from at SFF if you want to introduce the youngest members of your crew to movie-loving good times. Animated adventures that underline it’s cool to be different are ace, so we’re keen to see this tentacled and eyepatch-wearing plucky young hero leap from the comic books by Australian artist Nathan Jurevicius and onto the big screen. Deploying the vocal talents of Sam Neill, Anna Torv, Remy Hii, Tim Minchin and more, the animation also marks the cinematic debut of outstanding tennis player and disability activist Dylan Alcott.
The Sydney Film Festival runs from June 7-18. For more info, visit the SFF website.
