Sydney Film Festival Reveals First Films for 2013

The 60^th Sydney Film Festival today announced a selection of films in advance of the full program launch on Wednesday, 8 May.

“We’re excited to give you a sneak peek of 27 of the 160 films in this year’s program, revealing a real cross-section of the range and quality of features and documentaries you can expect from our 60^th Sydney Film Festival,” said SFF Festival Director Nashen Moodley. “These are some of the best productions from all over the world that we have in store for you; the films Australia will be hearing about, talking about and arguing about over the next year. You’ll see them here first. Between them, they capture the mood of the times that make us who and what we are today.”

The Sydney Festival returns to its popular Hub venue at the Lower Town Hall, the State Theatre, Event Cinema George Street, Dendy Opera Quays, Art Gallery of NSW and it is pleased to stretch its precinct to sessions at the much loved Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace in Cremorne.

This first announcement comprises 27 titles including 24 Australian premieres, 16 features and 11 documentaries, produced from 16 countries, as well as the World Premiere of Australian performance artist William Yang’s documentary William Yang: My Generation, screening in partnership with ABC TV Arts and Vivid Ideas.

Today’s announcement also includes the Australian premiere of the highly anticipated neo-Gothic thriller Stoker, directed by Park Chan-Wook and starring three Australian actresses: Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Jacki Weaver.

Award winning films include The Act of Killing, the winner of the Audience Award at the 2013 Berlinale; Prince Avalanche, winner of a Silver Bear for best direction at the 2013 Berlinale; Blancanieves, the winner of Best Film at Spain’s prestigious 2013 Goya Awards; Stories We Tell, one of ‘Canada’s Top Ten’ films at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.

Other early highlights include:

• The digital restoration of the groundbreaking 1981 film Wrong Side of the Road, based on the real lives of seminal Australian bands Us Mob and No Fixed Address, presented in partnership with the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

• Wadjda, the first-ever feature film shot completely in Saudi Arabia - a country in which cinemas are not permitted - by Saudi Arabia’s first women filmmaker, Haifaa Al Mansour  (University of Sydney graduate). Wadjda won the Best Arab Feature Film prize at the 2013 Dubai International Film Festival.

• Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls, the entertaining true story of Burma’s first girl band by Australian director Juliet Lamont (winner of SFF’s FOXTEL Australian Documentary Prize in 2010 with The Snowman).

• The Australian Premiere of Red Obsession – selected for both the Berlinale and Tribeca Film Festival, and narrated by Russell Crowe – a compelling documentary about high-end Bordeaux wine, screening with a three-course ‘Bordeaux-inspired’ dinner by top Australian celebrity chef Luke Mangan at the glass brasserie, Hilton Sydney. 

• The retrospective screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, which was released in 1954, the same year Sydney Film Festival began.

• Tying in with the 60^thanniversary screening of Rear Window, the Sydney Film Festival Hub will present the Australian premiere of the video installation Rear Window Loop by award-winning European artist Jeff Desom.  Programmed under the theme ‘cinema reconstructed’, the Hub will return in 2013 with a great series of innovative and entertaining performances, projections and expert talks in the popular pop-up bar at Lower Town Hall.