The 73rd Sydney Film Festival has unveiled a preliminary list of 13 films ahead of its full program of screenings, offering an early glimpse of what festival-goers can expect during the event running from June 3-14 in the Australian city. The full lineup will drop on May 6.
Australian Stories leads the local team. Selena Miles’s “Silenced” follows lawyer Jennifer Robinson and survivors including Brittany Higgins and Amber Heard, with defamation law and the #MeToo movement as its frame. Ian Darling AO, whose “The Final Quarter” premiered in Sydney in 2019, returns with “In the Valley”, a portrait of rural life in Kangaroo Valley drawn from the rhythms and traditions of the community there.
Gus Van Sant’s “Dead Man’s Wire” brings together Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery and Al Pacino in a recreation of the 1977 hostage standoff that was shown live on American television. The documentary “Broken English” examines the life and legacy of Marianne Faithfull with Tilda Swinton and George MacKay, producers of “20,000 Days on Earth”, which premiered in Sydney in 2014.
The two titles are fresh off major festival wins. Ilker Catak’s “Yellow Letters” takes Golden Bear in Berlin; It is the story of a family’s downfall in Turkey due to a small act of defiance leading to authoritarian consequences. Sundance Award-winner Rafael Manuel’s debut film “Filipiana” tracks a teenage T-girl on a Manila golf course whose shiny surface hides class violence beneath.
Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Léa Seydoux star in Ildiko Enendi’s “Silent Friend,” winner of the Fipres Prize at the 82nd edition of Venice, in a multi-generational drama driven by a ginkgo tree. Isabelle Huppert gets a vampire to play in Ulrike Oettinger’s “The Blood Countess,” from a screenplay by Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jellinek (“The Piano Teacher”). Pete Ohs’s “Erupcza” is the story of a stampede in Warsaw that begins to unravel, starring musician Charli XCX in the lead role.
Marwan Hamed’s “El Set” explores the life of Umm Kulthum on a grand scale, following the story of the Egyptian singer becoming one of the most famous voices in the Arab world. Damien Hauser’s “Memories of Princess Mumbi” imagines a future African empire torn between AI and tradition; Firozeh Khosrowani’s “Past Future Continuous,” an IDFA winner, tells the story of a woman who fled Iran and reconnects with her aging parents through the cameras in their Tehran home. Tamra Davis’s “The Best Summer”, a Sundance world premiere, assembles archival footage of the 1995 Summersault tour of Australia, featuring the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth and Foo Fighters.
Festival Director Nasheen Moodley said, “Award-winning Berlinale and Sundance, an intense world premiere from Australia, Isabelle Huppert as a vampire who is as fabulous as she gets, and even more – we wanted to present a glimpse of the distinctive voices from around the world coming to SFF.”
