2023 marks the platinum jubilee of the iconic Sydney Film Festival. To celebrate, we've partnered with festival director Nashen Moodley to curate a retrospective of selected films from across SFF's storied history. looks back on the big ticket films, the indie gems, the global discoveries, that made their mark at the Sydney Film Festival, and offers a taste of what makes SFF such a vital part of Australia's winter film calendar.
We caught up with Nashen to reflect upon a few of the collection highlights, just as he was about to fly out to the Cannes Film Festival to identify a few 11th hour additions to the 70th event's program...
Alps
MA15+
Greece, 2011
Genre: Drama
Language: Greek
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Aris Servetalis, Ariane Labed, Aggeliki Papoulia, Stavros Psyllakis, Johnny Vekris, Erifili Stefanidou
Nashen says:
Alps was the film that won the competition in my first year as director of Sydney Film Festival. So I thought, that's one to highlight, because I think the film is incredible. But also, I was thinking about the trajectory of the filmmaker. Yorgos Lanthimos made films like Dogtooth and Alps, and then all of a sudden was catapulted into English language films and working with Nicole Kidman and and then made The Favourite. So it's wonderful that his early films were with the Sydney Film Festival and now he's making international cinema in the English language with major stars.
SBS On Demand: Stream Free
Alps
Beginning
MA15+Georgia, France, 2020
Genre: Drama
Language: Georgian
Director: Dea Kulumbegashvili
Starring: Ia Sukhitashvili, Rati Oneli, Kakha Kintsurashvili
Nashen says:It's a first film, and we showed it a few years ago now. When we're making the selection, every now and then, you see something that's just so absolutely stunning and you know nothing about the filmmaker. For many in the audience, I think they would not have seen many films from Georgia before. And here's something really incredible, something totally fully formed and so brilliantly thought out. It really is a film that takes you in with its beauty, but then also really shocks you in the directions it goes. I think it's a tremendous first film and it's one that you can discover at film festivals.
SBS On Demand: Stream Free
Beginning
Drive My Car
MA15+
Japan, 2021
Genre: Drama
Language: Japanese, Chinese, English, German, Indonesian, Korean, Malay, Tagalog
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Starring: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Toko Miura, Reika Kirishima, Yoo-rim Park, Dae-Young Jin, Sonia Yuan, Satoko Abe, Masaki Okada, Perry Dizon, Ann Fite
Fiona: And sure, it is three hours long but it's a brisk three hours. There are some long films pass like 90 minutes and there's some 90-minute films that feel like three hours...
Nashen: Exactly! Exactly. If you had told me there's a three-hour film that involves of elements of theatrical production, I would have said, "No, not for me, not at all". But I think it's just astonishingly great.
SBS On Demand: Stream Free
Drive My Car
Lantana
MA15+
Australia, 2001
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Language: English
Director: Ray Lawrence
Starring: Anthony LaPaglia, Kerry Armstrong, Vince Colosimo, Barbara Hershey, Glenn Robbins, Geoffrey Rush
Let's go back a little while. Lantana opened the Sydney Film Festival, way before I got here. But I showed the film at the Durban Film Festival in South Africa at the time, and people absolutely loved the film. And I think I still think it's an Australian classic. It's one of my favourite Australia films. Many people people who are watching this at SBS On Demand have seen it, but you know what? Let's all see it again.
SBS On Demand: Stream Free
Lantana
Lore
MA15+
United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, 2012
Genre: Drama, War
Language: English
Director: Cate Shortland
Starring: Saskia Rosendahl, Mika Seidel, Ursina Lardi, Hans-Jochen Wagner, Sven Pippig, Philip Wiegratz
Source: SBS Movies
It's one of the first Australian films I played in the competition at Sydney Film Festival. We did the world premiere of Lore in 2012 and Cate Shortland is one of this country's great filmmakers, I think one of the world's great filmmakers, and I think she did a magnificent job with this film. We had the young actress, Saskia Rosendahl, with us for the world premiere along with Cate and the team. It was a beautiful screening and I remember it very fondly. So I thought it should be on the list!
SBS On Demand: Stream free
Lore
Mediterranean Fever
MDrama, 2022 Germany, France, Cyprus, Palestine
Language: Arabic
Languages: Arabic, Hebrew
Director: Maha Haj
Starring: Amer Hlehel, Ashraf Farah, Anat Hadid, Samir Elias, Cynthia Saleem, Shaden Kanboura, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Sobhi Hosari, Kareem Ghneim, Samar Qupty
Source: SBS Movies
Nashen says:
I chose this one because it's it's very recent. It was a late edition from Cannes last year, and I think it's such a fascinating look at masculinity within Palestine. It's from a women filmmaker, Maha Haj, and that makes it even more fascinating. It has such, such a incisive look at masculinity. Again, it's a film that you're not quite sure what you're watching. It seems like a comedy, but there are obviously very serious elements in the film. I think it's very deftly done and and because it was a festival last year, I think some people might not have seen it, so this would be a great opportunity to catch up on it.
SBS On Demand: Stream free
Mediterranean Fever
Mustang
France, Germany, Turkey, Qatar, 2015
Genre: Drama
Language: Turkish
Director: Deniz Gamze Erguven
Starring: Günes Sensoy, Tugba Sunguroglu, Elit Iscan, Ilayda Akdogan, Nihal G. Koldas, Ayberk Pekcan, Serife Kara, Suzanne Marrot, Aynur Komecoglu, Burak Yigit, Erol Afsin, Kadir Celebi, Müzeyyen Celebi
In 'Mustang', five sisters push back against the forces against them. Source: SBS Movies
SBS On Demand: Stream Free
Mustang
The Quiet Girl
M
Ireland, 2022
Genre: Drama
Language: English, Irish
Director: Colm Bairéad
Starring: Catherine Clinch, Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett, Michael Patric, Kate Nic Chonaonaigh, Carolyn Bracken, Joan Sheehy, Norette Leahy
SBS On Demand: Stream Free
The Quiet Girl
Sorry We Missed You
Belgium, France, United Kingdom, 2019
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Director: Ken Loach
Starring: Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood, Rhys Stone, Katie Proctor, Ross Brewster, Charlie Richmond, Julian Ions, Sheila Dunkerley, Maxie Peters, Mark Birch, Alfie Dobson
SBS On Demand: Stream Free
Sorry We Missed You
We Don't Need a Map
Australia, 2017
Genre: Documentary
Language: English
Director: Warwick Thornton
Starring: Warwick Thornton, Bruce Pascoe, Ghassan Hage
Filmmaker Warwick Thornton's film We Don't Need A Map takes a journey through Australia's cultural and political landscape. Source: Sydney Film Festival
It's the last Warwick Thornton film to open Sydney Film Festival and it was a wonderful cracking night. It was fantastic to open the festival with the film because not many people knew about this film at the time, and of course it was made for NITV. There's always such speculation within the industry about what's going to open the festival and when this was announced some people said, 'Wait, what is that?! We didn't know Warwick was making a new feature film" and it was such a surprise to the audience. It's such a strange, funny, but also very serious film. The audience just had such a great time with it. Warwick had a great time, of course, and yeah, I have very happy memories of that, of that night, of that year. And with Warwick's The New Boy opening the festival this year, it is going to be a night to match. I cannot wait.
SBS On Demand: Stream Free
We Don't Need A Map
The 70th Sydney Film Festival opens with Warwick Thornton's The New Boy on 7 June and runs until 18 June. Browse the 2023 program , and enjoy Nashen's full selection of past highlights within SBS On Demand's 70 Years Of Sydney Film Festival collection .
