OFFICIAL COMPETITION JURY
The 2022 Official Competition jury will judge the 12 titles in the Official Competition and award the Sydney Film Prize and $60,000 cash to the winner. PARKROYAL Darling Harbour, Sydney, is proud to announce its alignment with SFF this year as the official home away from home for SFF’s Awards Juries.
The 2022 Official Competition jury members are: acclaimed actor/director David Wenham (Australia), who will also be Jury President, BAFTA-nominated writer and director Jennifer Peedom (Australia), writer-director-producer Mostofa Sarwar Farooki (Bangladesh), Berlin Golden Bear-winning writer-director-producer Semih Kaplanoğlu (Turkey), and the Executive Director of the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, Tokyo, Yuka Sakano (Japan).
Now in its 13th year, the internationally recognised Official Competition recognises courageous, audacious and cutting edge film. The winner of the Sydney Film Prize is announced at the Festival’s Closing Night ceremony at the State Theatre on Sunday 19 June.
“The 2022 jury is made up of five Australian and international film professionals of exceptional stature and vision,” said Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley. “The Official Competition features some of the most innovative and extraordinary films and filmmakers in the world right now, so the jury have some tough calls to make!”
Renowned Archibald-Prize winning Australian artist Del Kathryn Barton will introduce her Official Competition feature Blaze, a magical story of a teenager who witnesses a brutal crime. Barton will then join Sandy George in conversation about her feature-length directorial debut at the Festival Hub (Saturday 18 June, 1:45pm).
Also attending the Festival to present the premiere of their films in competition will be: French-Cambodian writer-director Davy Chou (Return to Seoul); Venezuelan director and co-writer Lorenzo Vigas (The Box); Irish writer-director Colm Bairéad (The Quiet Girl); Bolivian director Alejandro Loayza Grisi (Utama); Australian producer Kristina Ceyton (You Won’t Be Alone) and Indonesian film star Happy Salma (Before, Now & Then).
GUEST LINE-UP
The 69th Sydney Film Festival announces the first slate of distinguished industry guests who will attend the Australian and World Premieres of their films, walk the Festival’s red carpets, introduce their films, and participate in talks, panels and Q&A sessions. Please note: for the most up-to-date list of festival guests, visit sff.org.au.
Highlights include:
The filmmaking team from We Are Still Here will be in attendance to present their Opening Night World Premiere of their multi-genre anthology on First Nations peoples. The team includes Australian directors: Beck Cole, Danielle Maclean, Dena Curtis, Tracey Rigney; New Zealand Aotearoa directors: Tim Worrall, Chantelle Burgoyne, Mario Gaoa, Miki Magasiva, Richard Curtis; and producers Mia Henry-Tierney, Mitchell Stanley, Toni Stowers and Renae Maihi (Wednesday 8 June, 7:00pm). The filmmaking team will then speak at the Festival Hub in First Nation Next Wave, where they will discuss how they created a film with 10 directors in two countries during a pandemic (Friday 10 June, 5:00pm).
Guests introducing their films in Special Presentations at the State Theatre include: New Zealand director Armağan Ballantyne and writer/cast member Jackie van Beek (The Breaker Upperers, SFF 2018), who will introduce the uproariously funny Nude Tuesday, about a couple who end up at a new-age retreat (Friday 10 June, 8:45pm), with cast members Damon Herriman and Jemaine Clement joining as guests; and Australian director Gracie Otto (Under the Volcano, SFF 2021) and writer Krew Boylan will present Seriously Red, Otto’s feature debut depicting a misguided redhead who becomes a Dolly Parton impersonator (Saturday 11 June, 6:45pm).
Australian filmmakers attending as guests to introduce the Word Premieres of their feature films include: director and co-writer Macario de Souza for 6 Festivals, a moving love-letter to young friendship and the life-altering power of live music (Friday 10 June, 8:30pm); writer-director Rowan Devereux for his irreverent comedy Evicted! A Modern Romance, about four spuriously employed housemates on the verge of eviction (Thursday 16 June, 6:30pm); and director-producer Molly Haddon’s The Longest Weekend, an indie film about a sibling reunion in Sydney’s inner west (Sunday 12 June, 9:00pm).
Guests presenting the World Premieres of the two Australian series in the Festival include: director Dylan River (Buckskin, SFF 2013) and actors Mark Coles-Smith, Toby Leonard Moore, Tuuli Narkle and Steve Bisley from Mystery Road: Origin; and director Erica Glynn, writer-director Steven McGregor and actor Warren H. Williams from True Colours.
Australian filmmakers Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes will present their millennial comedy-horror Sissy with lead actor Aisha Dee (The Bold Type).
Australian filmmaker-barrister David Easteal will present his film The Plains, an intimate portrait of a middle-aged Australian driving home from work over the course of a year which was in Competition, Rotterdam.
Australian writer-director Craig Boreham and members of the filmmaking team will be guests of the Festival to introduce their film Lonesome, a queer exploration of desire, sexuality and isolation set in Sydney.
New Zealand Aotearoa filmmaker Michelle Savill will present her Berlin and SXSW favourite Millie Lies Low, a thoughtful exploration of impostor syndrome and the ways anxiety can distort decision making.
Turkish filmmaker and SFF Official Competition Jury Member Semih Kaplanoğlu will present his Un Certain Regard-nominated morality fable Commitment Hasan, the story of a farmer who sets about clearing his slate before his pilgrimage to Mecca.
Indian director Karan Gour and cast members Mukul Chadda and Annukampa Harsh will present the magical realist drama Fairy Folk, telling the story of a genderless woodland creature that crashes into the lives of a jaded couple.
Korean director Shin Su-Won will attend to present her tantalising mystery Hommage starring Lee Jeong-eun (Parasite, SFF 2019).
Japanese folklore-glam-rock-musical-anime epic Inu-Oh will be presented by its director, Masaaki Yuasa.
Bangladeshi filmmaker and Official Competition Jury member Mostafa Sarwar Farooki (Television, SFF 2013; Saturday Afternoon, SFF 2019) and actor Megan Mitchell will attend to present their film No Land’s Man, the story of a South Asian man fleeing persecution who meets an Australian woman in New York.
Canadian director Ashley McKenzie will present her film in the Flux: Art+Film strand, Queens of Qing Dynasty, a story of magnetic attraction and unlikely kinship between a neurodivergent teen and a queer student from Shanghai.
International film guests introducing their documentaries include UK director, producer, writer and cinematographer Joe Hunting, who will present his Sundance and CPH:DOX selected film We Met in Virtual Reality.
Germany-based documentarian Lena Karbe will attend to present her astute study of South Africa’s first all-female anti-poaching unit, Black Mambas, which won the F:ACT Award at CPH:DOX.
Prizewinning Bangladeshi director Kamar Ahmad Simon will present his documentary Day After…, a seductive journey on a century-old river steamer overflowing with passengers from all walks of life.
Vietnamese documentarian and Winner of Best Director at IDFA, Diễm Hà Lệ will present Children of the Mist, her portrait of a Hmong girl living in the mountains of North Vietnam, where bride-kidnapping remains a tradition.
South Sudanese documentarian Akuol de Mabior will present her personal and perceptive documentary No Simple Way Home, about a family who return home to South Sudan to help forge the young nation’s future.
Film guests for all nine Documentary Australia films will attend the Festival to introduce their films, including: Luke Cornish (Keep Stepping), Jason van Genderen (Everybody’s Oma), Penelope McDonald (Audrey Napanangka) along with the film’s subject Audrey Martin; Maya Newell (The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone) and the film’s subject Georgie Stone; Brodie Poole (General Hercules); Adrian Di Salle (Polenta); Jessica Barclay Lawton (The Sweetness); and Simon Target (Warrawong…the windy place on the hill).
Guests presenting their films competing in the Sustainable Future Awards include: Australian director Karl Malakunas (Delikado – also screening in the Documentary Australia competition), Bolivian director Alejandro Loayza Grisi (Utama) and All That Breathes’ film subject Nadeem Shehzad.
Filmmakers from Europe! Voices of Women in Film presenting their films to Festival audiences are: Irish director and screenwriter Antonia Campbell-Hughes (It Is In Us All); Romanian director and screenwriter Alina Grigore (Blue Moon); Danish director and screenwriter Tea Lindeburg (As In Heaven), and Swiss director- screenwriter Eva Vitija (Loving Highsmith). These guests will also take part in the public talk Europe! Voices of Women in Film at The Hub (Sunday 12 June, 12:00pm), discussing why a focus on women is still needed in 2022, with Screen International’s Sandy George.
FIlmmaker guests from the Screenability program will include the filmmakers selected for the Screenability Filmmakers Fund for Screen NSW: Madeleine Stewart (Inspire Me); Steve Anthopoulos (Voice Activated), and Natalia Stawyskyj (All Silent Dogs). After the screening of Shadow, in partnership with Accessible Arts, members of the film team from Geelong’s Back to Back Theatre Company, will discuss their lived experiences with writer-director Johanna Garvin.
The full Sydney Film Festival 2022 program can be found online at sff.org.au.
Sydney Film Festival runs in cinemas 8-19 June 2022. Tickets and flexipasses to Sydney Film Festival 2022 are on sale now. Please call 1300 733 733 or visit sff.org.au for more information or to book.
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