The 73rd Sydney Film Festival has announced an initial schedule of 13 films ahead of the release of the full program, giving festival-goers an early idea of what to expect when the event takes place in the Australian city from June 3 to 14. The full lineup will be released on May 6th.
Australian stories guide local troops. Selina Miles’ Silenced follows a group of survivors, including lawyers Jennifer Robinson, Brittany Higgins and Amber Heard, within the framework of defamation law and the #MeToo movement. Director Ian Darling AO, who screened The Final Quarter in Sydney in 2019, returns with In the Valley, a depiction of Kangaroo Valley rural life drawn from the rhythms and traditions of the Kangaroo Valley community.
Directed by Gus Van Sant, Dead Man’s Wire stars Bill Skarsgard, Dacre Montgomery and Al Pacino as they reenact the 1977 hostage crisis that was broadcast live on American television. The documentary Broken English examines the life and legacy of Marianne Faithfull, with Tilda Swinton and George MacKay, the makers of 20,000 Days on Earth, which bowed in Sydney in 2014.
Two titles arrive fresh from wins at major festivals. Ilker Chatak’s “Yellow Letters” won the Golden Bear in Berlin. The story follows a small act of rebellion in Türkiye that causes authoritarian influence and causes the family to fall apart. Rafael Manuel’s Sundance Prize-winning debut feature, Filipinana, follows a teenage girl playing tee girl on a Manila golf course, and class violence lies beneath its shiny surface.
Winner of the Fipresi Award at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, director Ildiko Enjedi’s Silent Friend stars Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Léa Seydoux and is a multigenerational drama anchored by a ginkgo tree. Ulrike Ottinger’s The Bloody Countess stars Isabelle Huppert as a vampire and was written by Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jellinek (The Piano Teacher). Pete Orth’s “Erupcja” stars musician Charlie XCX and depicts the unraveling of a Warsaw vacation.
Marwan Hamed’s “El Set” brings a large-scale approach to Umm Kultum’s life, tracing the Egyptian singer’s rise to becoming the most famous voice in the Arab world. Damien Hauser’s Memories of Princess Mumbi imagines a future African kingdom caught between AI and tradition. Firuzeh Khosrovani’s IDFA-winning film Past Future Continuous tells the story of a woman who fled Iran and reunites with her elderly parents through a camera in their home in Tehran. Tamra Davis’ The Best Summer, which had its world premiere at Sundance, is a collection of archival footage from Australia’s 1995 Summersault tour, featuring the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters and more.
“We wanted to give you a glimpse of the unique voices that come to SFF from all over the world, including winners from the Berlinale and Sundance, an immersive world premiere from Australia, and Isabelle Huppert in the ever-greater role of a vampire,” said festival director Nashen Moodley.
