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. The 70 Years Of Sydney Film Festival Collection 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.
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.
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
Nashen says:
I really enjoyed the film, and we screened in the competition a few years ago, and I. You know, even though it’s a it’s a three hour film, it’s a film that I, I really encouraged everyone. I could see it just because I think it’s so magnificent. And and then, of course, it went on to do to do well at the Oscars. And it had a great theatrical release in Australia and and several other places. So again, it’s a it’s a festival film that went on to have a wonderful life and brought so many people to the work of Hamaguchi.
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.
Director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi on reconnecting in beautiful Murakami adaptation ‘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
Nashen says:
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.
Five Faves: ‘Lantana’ director Ray Lawrence picks what to watch in isolation
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
Nashen says:
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!
Mediterranean Fever
M
Drama, 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
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.
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
Nashen says:
Mustang was, of course, at the festival years ago as one of the Audience Award winners. I mean, of course it won, I mean, have you seen this film?! It makes perfect sense for it t have won! But the film wasn’t very well known back then, of course. Again, it just goes to show that something unknown, by a filmmaker who’s not well-known at all can really just break through and and have an incredible connection with the audience. It’s truly a wonderful, heartbreaking, beautifully made film. So I thought, yes, why not? Yes. Give it a highlight here.
‘Mustang’: Deniz Gamze Ergüven interview
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
Nashen says:
A classic. I include this because it’s easily a film that could have been missed. It played several festivals, but it was not watched closely by professionals. But eventually someone sent me the link of the film and I saw it and I thought it was incredible. We put it in the competition, of course. And audiences went crazy for the film. You know, just everyone was crying and it was such an emotional screening. The director and the producer were here with us. From a film that came from a pretty obscure background, that hadn’t played major film festivals in the major positions. It just drew a lot of love wherever it went, and then in the end, was Oscar nominated. That’s just a lovely trajectory for a film that is so beautiful and moving. It’s perfectly done. It’s certainly one I’d love more and more people to see on based on the bond you form with it.
‘The Quiet Girl’ embraces the beauty of the Irish language
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
Nashen says:
You know. Ken Loach has a new film. I think for a number of years, we thought of that each film is his last film, from I, Daniel Blake, to this film. But he keeps going and that’s a wonderful thing, as far as I’m concerned! And I really love Sorry We Missed You, because I think it speaks to all of us about what’s going on in the world. All of us get deliveries now of everything, right? And we’re so used to it and we’re so used to having everything get to us so fast that we don’t really think of the repercussions of that speed and what happens to the people doing the work. These are the people making our lives more comfortable, exponentially more comfortable. Knowledge takes us directly into a situation faced by these people, who make our lives more comfortable by delivering the stuff that we need, urgently. And of course, it’s not urgent in most cases. So this film is very, very good. Loach is describing a very modern, very contemporary phenomenon, right? But at the same time, I think it’s Loach at his best, understanding the complexities of people. It’s a moving film and everyone, everyone should see it: Those receiving deliveries and those making them.
‘Sorry We Missed You’ and the will to push on
We Don’t Need a Map
Australia, 2017
Genre: Documentary
Language: English
Director: Warwick Thornton
Starring: Warwick Thornton, Bruce Pascoe, Ghassan Hage
Nashen says:
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.
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 here, and enjoy Nashen’s full selection of past highlights within SBS On Demand’s 70 Years Of Sydney Film Festival collection here.
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