This year’s opening night film sees acclaimed filmmaker and Kaytetye man Warwick Thornton (Sweet Country) team up with legendary actor Cate Blanchett (Tár) for the first time. Set in the 1940s, The New Boy stars Aswan Reid as a troubled Indigenous youth who is packed off to a mission run by Blanchett’s Sister Eileen. He soon makes a space for himself, but his exhibition of apparently supernatural powers puts him at odds with the Sister’s increasingly fervent religious convictions. Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair co-star in the latest offering from one of our finest directors.
Has it really been only 70 years? It seems like only yesterday that the Sydney Film Festival (SFF) began as a small event at the University of Sydney, but look at it now – a world class event, boasting hundreds of screenings, dozens of high-profile guests, events and Q&A sessions, all crammed into the scant 12 days between June 7 and June 18.
On such an anniversary, a sense of the weight of history is perhaps unavoidable, as we contemplate not only the fresh films on the slate, but the lifespan of the festival itself – from its humble beginnings to its current status as one of the premiere events on the international film circuit.
It’s certainly on the mind of festival director Nashen Moodley, now in his twelfth year at the helm. Still, he assures us that some things never change.
We have so many films from Cannes. Which is always a great boost to the line-up.
“The approach is always the same,” he tells us. “It's looking for the best possible films from around the world. We start pretty early, with a search beginning around August of the previous year. And I think that yeah, that's very much the way we've gone about it, just looking at as much as we can. And of course, it was really important to have a great opening night film this year, and that we managed to do at a very late moment – an uncomfortably late moment – we have The New Boy.”
The latest work from director Warwick Thornton is a more than worthy candidate for the opening slot, pairing the Sweet Country director with Australian screen icon Cate Blanchett for the first time – a team up that certainly has Sydney cineastes excited. But Moodley’s comment speaks to the frantic nature of festival curation – poring over entries, hunting down coveted films, scrambling to deliver the best program possible. SFF’s position on the calendar, so shortly after the Cannes and Berlin festivals, is a fortuitous one, with many high-profile critical darlings jumping directly from Europe to Australia – which requires a lot of last-minute negotiation at times.
“We have so many films from Cannes,” Moodley says. “Which is always a great boost to the line-up. Having the newest, best films here in Sydney provides, in many cases, the first opportunity for a member of the public anywhere in the world to buy a ticket and watch those films.”
Indeed, so many films have been watched by so many people over the course of the festival’s history that in 2013 the Sydney Film Festival Archive was inaugurated, an online storehouse of historical information about the festival, with contributions from patrons, filmmakers, critics, academics, and more. And as of this year, it’s had a much-needed refresh.
“What the team has come up with is quite amazing,” Moodley explains. “Because there are tens of thousands of records that are catalogued. And it's also quite interactive, so people can log their own memories and pieces of festival paraphernalia from the years. We want it to be something that people can really engage with on quite a personal level, and at the same time it's a very useful resource for academics interested in the history of cinema in Sydney, or just anyone looking for that film that they saw ten years ago but can't remember the title of.”
But enough about old movies – let’s look at the new. Even seasoned patrons can struggle to navigate the sheer wealth of films SFF offers each year. But here are ten that should pique your interest.
