The 73rd Sydney Film Festival program has officially launched, and it includes a stellar line up of Australian feature films, documentaries and short films. 

“We want to invite you to join us at SFF this year, where each moment offers an opportunity for discovery and empathy,” said Festival Director Nashen Moodley.

“Art and cinema help us make sense of the world, take us into the lives of people far away from us, and remind us to remain vigilant about our own rights and freedoms. And we can’t forget, they’re also an enormous source of joy.”

In 2026, the Festival will present 248 films from 81 countries including 19 World Premieres, 3 International Premieres and 140 Australian Premieres, with screenings at the State Theatre, Sydney Opera House and cinemas across the city.

The 73rd Sydney Film Festival will open Wednesday 3 June with the Australian premiere of Silenced, directed by Selina Miles. The Sundance-premiered documentary follows international human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson as she fights against the weaponisation of defamation law by alleged perpetrators to silence survivors and journalists. The film traces the cases of Brittany Higgins, Catalina Ruiz-Navarro and Amber Heard.

Director Selina Miles, and subject Jennifer Robinson will attend Opening Night to present the film.

In 2026, the Official Competition celebrates 18 years of the prestigious Sydney Film Prize, which sees $60,000 awarded each year to an “audacious, cutting-edge and courageous” film. From Australia, Leviticus is a bold, breakout Sundance hit from Australian Adrian Chiarella, where two teenage boys contend with an evil force that takes on the form of the person they desire most: each other.

The competition is the only film competition in Australia endorsed by FIAPF, the regulating body for international film festivals, and is judged by a jury of international and Australian filmmakers and industry professionals.

Ten outstanding new Australian documentaries will compete for the $20,000 Documentary Australia Award, with the winning film also becoming Academy Award eligible.

World Premieres include Rodeo Dreams, the engrossing story of four young Queensland bull riders following their dreams across Gulf Country to the Mount Isa Rodeo; Yumburra, Grace McKenzie’s portrait of Bruce Pascoe in the aftermath of Dark Emu, living on his riverside farm and testing the theories of his landmark book; and The Piano Tuner, Natalia Laska’s eight-year profile of Martin Tucker, a passionate piano doctor on a mission to save Australia’s ageing instruments.

Australian films premiering in competition include Mockbuster, Anthony Frith’s hilarious audience award-winning documentary charting his attempt to make a dinosaur film for notorious B-movie house The Asylum in just six days; Whistle, Christopher Nelius’ (Girls Can’t Surf, SFF 2021) offbeat crowd-pleaser following the world’s greatest whistling competition; Silenced, which opens the Festival; Sukundimi Walks Before Me, a powerful documentary following an Indigenous PNG community’s campaign to preserve the Sepik River from a mining project; and Time and Tide, Vee Shi’s compelling hybrid docu-drama tracing contemporary China through a multigenerational family navigating the pressures of familial obligation.

Australian voices feature strongly. Pressure, the much-anticipated latest from acclaimed Australian director Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai), stars Andrew Scott and Brendan Fraser in the true story of one meteorologist’s impact on D-Day. Ian Darling’s (The Final Quarter, SFF 2019) The Valley also has its world premiere, a meditative portrait of life in Kangaroo Valley.

Australian features lead with bold new work, including Saccharine, from Natalie Erika James (Relic), a body horror following a medical student addicted to sinister weight-loss pills; The Fox, Dario Russo’s absurdist Australian folktale starring Jai Courtney and Emily Browning, with Olivia Colman as a talking fox and Sam Neill as a magpie; First Light, a debut from Filipino-Australian director James J. Robinson, about a nun whose suspicion leads her to a crisis of faith; Yesterday Island, Sam Voutas’ dark indie comedy about a man trapped on an island in a time loop; and Don’t Tell Mother, Anoop Lokkur’s debut set in 1990s Bangalore, from Busan.

Other Australian features include the World premiere of French Girls, the impressive debut from Hyun Lee, following a young Sydney woman drawn into the world of modelling; Boss Cat, Genevieve Clay-Smith’s World Premiere, a story of family, friendship and the power of krumping from Bus Stop Films; and Body Blow, Dean Francis’ erotic thriller starring Paul Capsis, following a disgraced cop plunged into Sydney’s neon-lit gay nightlife.

In its 57-year history, Sydney Film Festival’s short film competition has launched the careers of countless directors, writers, producers, cinematographers and other film creatives.

The 10 finalists compete for five illustrious prizes: the Dendy Live Action Short Award; the Yoram Gross Animation Award; the Dendy Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director; the AFTRS Craft Award; and the Event Cinemas Rising Talent Award for Screenwriting.

The short films competing are Mr Adidos, Flesh Fruit, Date 3, Our Choir Has Always Travelled, Saint Valentine, Sugar, Flywire, Ginkgo, Raft Race and Maŋutji (Catching Eyes).

The full Sydney Film Festival 2026 program can be found at sff.org.au.

Body Blow

Written and directed by Dean Francis
Produced by Dean Francis, Ulysses Oliver, Ben Ferris and Timothy May
Starring Tim Pocock, Chris Haywood and Paul Capsis

Disgraced cop Aiden (Tim Pocock) is sent deep undercover into Sydney’s pulsing gay nightlife – a world of neon haze, sweat and shifting loyalties. There he meets Cody (Tom Rodgers), a younger bartender whose charm quickly complicates his mission. But Cody answers to Fat Frankie, a commanding drag queen, brought fabulously to life by Paul Capsis, who pulls Aiden into a web of crime and danger. The film also features an unforgettable performance from Sacha Horler (The Dressmaker). Director Dean Francis (Drown) delivers a bold, stylish film with impressive visuals, charged performances and a moody energy that gives this erotic thriller a raw edge.

Boss Cat

Written and directed by Genevieve Clay-Smith
Produced by Deanne Weir, Michele Turnure-Salleo, Dianna La Grassa and Eleanor Winkler
Starring Olivia Hargroder, Penny Downie and Julia Savage

Twenty-three-year-old Sonja (Olivia Hargroder) lives with Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) and must fight for her independence following the tragic loss of her mother. Distant grandmother, Doris (Penny Downie, The Crown), becomes the guardian to Sonja and her younger sister, Emma (Julia Savage, Blaze, SFF 2023). But when Doris tries to sell the family home and uproot their lives, Sonja defends her right to her home, lifestyle, friends and boyfriend, Michael (Chris Bunton, Nude Tuesday, SFF 2022). Inspired by her new friend Hakim (Elijah Williams), Sonja stands up to Doris by expressing herself through krumping, an energetic dance style that releases frustration. A stirring debut about individuality and independence.

Don’t Tell Mother

Written and directed by Anoop Lokkur
Produced by Mikayla Henke, Matthew Jenkins and Anoop Lokkur
Starring Siddarth Swaroop, Aishwarya Dinesh and Anirudh P. Keserker

Jurassic Park is in cinemas, smartphones don’t exist, and VHS rules at home. Anoop Lokkur’s outstanding feature debut offers a rare and rewarding glimpse into middle-class life in India, 1993. Against this backdrop, Lokkur has created anything but a simple nostalgia piece. Instead, he balances warmth and tenderness with sharp social critique as we observe the rhythms of everyday life for parents Lakshmi and Raju, and their primary school-age sons Adi and Aakash. Like a polaroid developing before our eyes, this finely wrought drama reveals its complexity and rings achingly true at every turn. First-time child actors Siddarth Swaroop and Anirudh P. Keserker are simply amazing as the brothers.

First Light

Written and directed by James J. Robinson
Produced by Gabrielle Pearson, Jane Pe Aguirre and Christelle Lou Dychangco
Starring Ruby Ruiz, Soliman Cruz and Kare Adea

Sister Yolanda (Ruby Ruiz) leads a peaceful, pious life in a mountainous convent in northern Luzon. Lending her services to the local hospital, she acts as a spiritual balm to the sick and dying. Reading a young man his last rites following a tragic construction accident, she begins to suspect foul play. Uncovering a trail of corruption that implicates both the community’s wealthy elite as well as her treasured Church, Sister Yolanda is left in a challenging moral quandary, calling her to act. Winning over audiences at MIFF (Best Australian Director Award) and Rotterdam, and shot in masterful, painterly tableaux that showcase Robinson’s background in photography, First Light announces the arrival of an exciting new directorial talent.

The Fox

Written and directed by Dario Russo
Produced by Kristina Ceyton, Samantha Jennings and Carly Maple
Starring Jai Courtney, Emily Browning and Olivia Colman

Jai Courtney (Dangerous Animals, SFF 2025) stars as Nick, a small-town, himbo fox catcher and heir to a large estate. But his personal life is a mess – his fiancée, Kori (Browning, Sleeping Beauty, SFF 2011), is caught sleeping with her boss, Derek (Damon Herriman, Together, SFF 2025), who is the husband of her best friend Diana (Claudia Doumit, The Boys). This entangled foursome of adultery and toxic relationships gets upended when Nick catches a mysterious Fox (voiced by Colman) who promises him the perfect wife in exchange for freedom. Nick accepts the Fox’s proposal but soon gets more than he bargained for. A devilish folktale made with remarkable animatronic puppetry for the titular Fox and Magpie (Sam Neill).

French Girls

Written and directed by Hyun Lee
Produced by Georgia Noe and Hyun Lee
Starring Mia Kidis, Luca Blasonato and Nash Edgerton

Mia (Mia Kidis) is drifting through life working on construction sites when she’s scouted by a Sydney model agent. Suddenly, she’s making more money than ever while working less – something her boyfriend loves to point out. Mia quietly observes this strange new world of modelling with deep uncertainty. Is this really the life she wants? With one curious turn after another, she finds herself in trouble with the law. Full of insouciance, familiar local talent and gorgeously shot by cinematographer Dimitri Zaunders (The Golden Spurtle, SFF 2025), French Girls is an irresistibly charming, refreshingly perceptive take on societal representations of femininity and the disappointing realities of labour.

He Died With a Felafel in His Hand

Written and directed by Richard Lowenstein
Produced by Andrew McPhail, Domenico Procacci and Richard Lowenstein
Starring Noah Taylor, Emily Hamilton and Romane Bohringer

Aspiring writer Danny (Taylor, Shine, SFF 1996; Almost Famous) bounces between a succession of ramshackle sharehouses in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Danny and a revolving cast of eccentric housemates somehow find themselves dodging thugs and dirty cops, all while navigating the familiar trials and tribulations of twenty-something life – unpaid rent, bad relationships and cleaning rosters. Director Richard Lowenstein’s (Mystify: Michael Hutchence, SFF 2019; Dogs in Space) offbeat style perfectly captures the absurdity of coming-of-age, the frustration of figuring out where you fit in the world, and the fleeting, dysfunctional friendships that quietly sustain and define young adult lives.

Leviticus

Written and directed by Adrian Chiarella
Produced by Samantha Jennings, Kristina Ceyton and Hannah Ngo
Starring Joe Bird, Stacy Clausen and Mia Wasikowska

In a sleepy regional Victorian town, teen boys Naim (Joe Bird, Talk to Me) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) form a powerful attraction – a sin in their God-fearing, conservative Christian community. When their budding queer love is discovered, Naim and Ryan are subjected to a radical conversion therapy ritual by a mysterious ‘healer’ (Nicholas Hope, Bad Boy Bubby). A sinister supernatural entity is thereby released, targeting only the boys and taking the form of what they desire most: each other. The astonishingly clever feature debut of award-winning Australian writer-director Adrian Chiarella (Dwarf Planet, SFF Dendy Awards 2021), the film melds coming-of-age romance, supernatural queer horror and a touch of It Follows into its chilling curse narrative. The two young leads Bird and Clausen lend a believable chemistry and tenderness to their roles, making their eventual terror all the more palpable. From the producers of Talk to Me, and bolstered by impressive supporting turns from Mia Wasikowska and Ewen Leslie, Leviticus is an electrifying showcase for Australian screen talent, and a worthy new entry in the canon of homegrown horror.

Mockbuster

Directed by Anthony Frith
Written by Anthony Frith and Sandy Cameron

Produced by David Elliot-Jones, Sandy Cameron and Naomi Ball

B-movie fan and corporate video maker Anthony Frith has long aspired to direct a feature. In a last-ditch attempt, he contacts the legendary trash movie house, creators of many mockbusters (blockbuster knockoffs). A meeting with executives in Los Angeles follows and he heads home filled with trepidation, a page of plot points and the promise of a script. He is given just six days to shoot a lost world dinosaur film in suburban Adelaide on a shoestring budget. Frith documents the chaotic process, his bewildered cast, and his own creeping self-doubt. As he chases his dream through the rollercoaster hustle that is low-budget genre filmmaking, Frith simultaneously creates this riotous yet insightful documentary.

Phenomena

Directed by Josef Gatti
Written by Josef Gatti and Joseph Nizeti
Produced by Rob Innes, Josef Gatti, Jessica Harrop, Caitlin Mae Burke and Jad Abumrad

Debut filmmaker Josef Gatti, with the help of his physics teacher dad, sets out to visualise the forces and elements that shape the natural world such as light, matter, energy, entropy and life. Light is fractured, crystals form and spread, hydrocarbons flow, sound is visualised, and inner workings are revealed. Every image in the film is real, captured on camera with no visual effects or artifice – a fact that makes this visually stunning documentary even more remarkable. This art meets science adventure (which started life as an online series) is accompanied by a glorious electronic score making this mesmeric journey a truly sensory see-it-in-the cinema experience.

The Piano Tuner

Directed by Natalia Laska
Written by Natalia Laska and Fiona Strain
Produced by Julia Overton and Tom Zubrycki

Martin Tucker is a ‘piano doctor’, diagnosing glitches in everything from ancient uprights to baby grands. Australia was once home to the largest number of pianos in the world, but electric keyboards have taken over, and most pianos are destined for landfill. Seeking new clients, Martin heads north with a carload of spare keys, strings and other paraphernalia. Everyone he meets along the way, whether hospitable old-timers, isolated eccentrics or enthusiastic families, has a story to tell about their relationship with the piano. Over eight years, director Natalia Laska filmed her partner Martin, capturing his obsession and dedication, and celebrating Australia’s love for this marvellous instrument and its music.

Ripples In The Mist

Directed by Clara Law
Written by Clara Law and Eddie L.C. Fong
Produced by Eddie L.C. Fong, Clara Law, Cecilia Wong and Samantha Kwan

Wai leaves Hong Kong without warning, drifting through Taiwan and reconnecting with past contacts. Ling travels from Hong Kong to Australia after the death of a close friend, and tries to piece together her final moments. Their parallel journeys unfold between these two countries that offer new beginnings. The latest from Macau-born, Australia-based filmmaker Clara Law (Drifting Petals, SFF 2021; Floating Life, SFF 1996) is a graceful essayistic drama, blending documentary, performance and opera in a distinctly poetic form. Reuniting with collaborator and cinematographer Eddie Fong, Law contrasts the lush beauty of Taiwan with the Australian bush, exploring grief, exile, friendship and the renewing power of art.

Rodeo Dreams

Directed by Rhian Skirving and W.A.M. Bleakley
Produced by Anna Charalambous and Charlotte Wheaton

Considered one of the most dangerous sports on Earth, bull riding is eight seconds of fast and furious tension – with the chance of a prize – preceded by months of determined graft. It’s a risky sport for youthful dreamers like Peter Jnr, living in remote Doomadgee with his ex-bull rider father; tenacious Camicka, hustling on a feedlot; Mount Isa local favourite Donovan; and talented larrikin Darcy. Filmed over three years, this engrossing documentary captures the grit and determination of the four Queenslanders, with their stories accompanied by a soulful score from Sam Teskey (Teskey Brothers).

Saccharine

Written and directed by Natalie Erika James
Produced by Anna McLeish, Sarah Shaw and Natalie Erika James
Starring Midori Francis, Danielle Macdonald and Madeleine Madden

When medical student, Hana (Midori Francis, Grey’s Anatomy), runs into an old friend who has drastically slimmed down since high school, she becomes enticed to take the same weight loss medication. Desperate to gain the adoration of her personal trainer and crush, Alanya (Madeleine Madden, Mystery Road), Hana gets wrapped up in her insecurities and addicted to the drug – so much so, she starts making her own pills. But the main ingredient brings ghastly consequences when Hana is haunted by a horrifying and hungry ghost that grows larger while Hana’s body grows smaller. James’s stylish, genre filmmaking is a timely and biting critique of online consumption and body-centric culture.

Silenced

Written and directed by Selina Miles
Produced by Blayke Hoffman

Courtroom footage and behind-the-headlines interviews reveal how the legal system is being used to victimise, discredit and ruin survivors, and journalists reporting on their stories. From Amber Heard in London to journalist Catalina Ruiz-Navarro in Colombia, and Brittany Higgins in our own backyard, women globally face a new kind of silencing at the hands of perpetrators of sexual violence. It’s a legal backlash Australian Jennifer Robinson is committed to fighting, inspired by her grandmother who was also a survivor. With unrivalled access, Selina Miles (Martha: A Picture Story, SFF 2019) challenges the flaws in the justice system that make this silencing possible, while revealing the cost to those who speak up.

Sukundimi Walks Before Me

Directed by Matasila Freshwater, Lachlan McLeod
Produced by David Elliot-Jones, Maria Tanner, Emmanuel Peni, Lachlan McLeod and Kerry Warkia
Starring Matasila Freshwater and Nick Fenton

In 2016, a global mining company submitted a plan to the Papua New Guinea government to build a massive mine near the Sepik’s waters. The scheme has the potential to pollute this biodiversity hotspot, destroying the environment, livelihood and wellbeing of the Sepik people. Emmanuel (Manu) Peni leads his community in a grassroots resistence, invoking Indigenous and ancestral knowledge against the forces of colonial bureaucracy and Western development. In following the campaign, the filmmakers, Matasila Freshwater (Vai, SFF 2019) and Lachlan McLeod, explore the Sepik people’s spiritual connection to their natural world. As Manu explains, “the living river, this is our identity, it is us, it runs inside me”.

Time and Tide

Written and directed by Vee Shi
Produced by Nicholson Ren and Vee Shi

Filmmaker Vee Shi’s father, a once proud and stubborn patriarch, is in poor health following a stroke. A longtime Australian resident, Vee Shi hasn’t seen his father for several years. In truth, Vee Shi has always been distant from his family. He heads to his remote hometown in Fuqing with the dual purpose of making a fiction film, and to truly understand his parents for the first time. But as he turns his camera on his family, including his unhappily married mother and single-mum sister, reality and fiction start to blur as generational pain and regret are exposed. Vee Shi’s feature-length debut is an extraordinarily raw and intimate vérité-style film, the first ever shot in the Fuqing dialect.

The Valley

Directed by Ian Darling
Written by Ian Darling and Sally Fryer
Produced by Kate Hodges, Sarah Butler, Mary Macrae and Ian Darling

Surrounded by dramatic cliffs and accessed by steep, winding roads that add to the sense of seclusion, this wholly observational documentary skilfully captures the Kangaroo Valley community, from artists to artisans, farmers to builders, council workers to shopkeepers. Many locals spend their working days in quiet solitude, whether milking cows or baking bread. Institutions and traditions, from carnivals to volunteer firefighting, sustain and enrich this rural community, fulfilling a yearning for human contact and a shared belonging. The Valley, with its rich visuals and Wiseman-inspired verité approach, delivers an immersive experience that savours the rhythms, tranquillity and timelessness of valley life.

Whistle

Directed by Christopher Nelius
Written by Christopher Nelius and Al Hicks
Produced by Camilla Mazzaferro, Louise Smith, Luke Mazzaferro, Al Hicks and Casey Ventura

Unsurprisingly, whistling as a competitive sport attracts an eccentric crowd – among them an anxious New York actress, a fiercely ambitious Spanish competitor, a perpetual runner-up Japanese muso and a piping pop star. Wrangling this multifarious mob, is ‘Whistling Diva’ producer Carole Anne Kaufman, a contentious figure, who’s on a mission to elevate the artform and the competition. Directed by Christopher Nelius (Girls Can’t Surf, SFF 2021) and produced by the Oscar-nominated team behind Porcelain War (SFF 2024), this highly entertaining documentary in the tradition of Best in Show and The Golden Spurtle, celebrates persistence and lip-pursing talent as it captures the highs and lows of competitive musical whistling.

Yesterday Island

Written and directed by Sam Voutas
Produced by Melanie Ansley
Starring Ivan Aristeguieta, Florence Noble and Francis Greenslade

Lured onto an island by an old friend under false pretences, down-and-out writer Amos (Aussie stand-up, Ivan Aristeguieta) ignores a series of red flags before finding himself all alone, stranded on the ‘arse end of the world’. As cabin fever sets in, he quickly learns that on this mostly unremarkable stretch of land, today is just like yesterday and tomorrow doesn’t exist. If Amos is ever to make it off the island he must pay it forward and trick somebody else into taking his place. Shot on location in Tasmania and co-starring Florence Noble (The Paragon, SFF 2023), expect the unexpected from this quirky and fun new indie comedy. An audience award winner and gentle reminder that no good deed goes unpunished.

Yumburra

Directed by Grace McKenzie
Written by Bruce Pascoe and Grace McKenzie
Produced by Tom Zubrycki, Grace McKenzie and Brian McKenzie

With the proceeds of his bestseller, Pascoe purchased a property on the Wallagaraugh River, where he grows native grains and reinvents ways to process them. Filmmaker Grace McKenzie (Audrey of the Alps, SFF 2013) deftly captures Pascoe’s stories of the land, his childhood, and Aboriginal ancestry. The bitter response by some in the media and academia to Dark Emu disturbed Pascoe and upended his family, but in the local waterways and mountains he’s finding strength and the courage to move on. Pascoe is a mesmerising storyteller, his resonant words matched by exquisite imagery, shot by Grace and her father, industry stalwart Brian McKenzie (Winter’s Harvest, Rouben Mamoulian Award winner 1980).

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