by Erin Free
The Sydney Film Festival always offers up a diverse and fascinating array of features, docos and events…and this year is no different. After a stroll through the extensive 2026 programme, here’s what caught FilmInk’s eye…
YESTERDAY ISLAND
Shot in Tasmania on the striking King Island, with a great cast led by popular comedian and TV regular Ivan Aristeguieta, along with Florence Noble, Francis Greenslade and David Fane, and written and directed by Sam Voutas (King of Peking), Yesterday Island looks delightful as a down-and-out writer finds himself stranded in the middle of nowhere, and realises that the only way out might be through the unusual new community that he builds around himself. Winner of the Audience Award at Austin Film Festival and the Critics Award at Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film.
THE AMERICAN DREAM
A French knucklehead buddy sports comedy about basketball? We’ll have some of that! The producers of the monster Gallic smash The Intouchables have knocked up this very likely charmer about two very unlikely sports entrepreneurs (Jean Pascal Zadi and Raphaël Quenard) who want to make it as basketball talent scouts by scouring France’s community courts for the next big thing and possible NBA superstar.
THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD //// LATE FAME
Two iconic actors get what look to be great late-game opportunities to embrace the concept of ageing while attacking challenging roles in extremis. In The Death Of Robin Hood (which looks to walk the same road as Logan and The Outlaw Josey Wales), Hugh Jackman plays a hardened, haunted, blood-all-over-his-hands version of the famed British outlaw who chases redemption when the end is near, while Late Fame sees the great Willem Dafoe essay a forgotten poet who experiences an unlikely renaissance courtesy of a crew of young hipsters who discover his work.
ANIMOL //// GHOST IN THE CELL
Who doesn’t like a good prison movie? Okay, we’ll ignore the chorus of negative responses, but don’t forget about classics like The Shawshank Redemption and Riot in Cell Block 11. There are two very different examples of the prison flick at this year’s Sydney Film Festival: with echoes of the great Scum, the UK’s Animol takes the gritty, realist approach in its familiar but energised story of a newbie forced to navigate the brutal juvenile prison system, while Indonesia’s Ghost In The Cell ingeniously places a demonic entity within its prison walls.
SUKUNDIMI WALKS BEFORE ME
Underdog, socially conscious documentary filmmaking has always had a warm, accepting and well-received home at The Sydney Film Festival, and Sukundimi Walks Before Me certainly fits into that slot this year. Nominated in 2 awards (Documentary Australia and the Sustainable Future), Sukundimi is directed by Matasila Freshwater and Lachlan McLeod, this in-our-backyard doco follows an indigenous Papua New Guinea community’s campaign to preserve their future when the life-giving, community-building Sepik River is threatened by mining.
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
In a team-up made in cinematic heaven, dynamic French actress and burgeoning director Hafsia Herzi (The Little Sister) and Italian screen legend and one-time Bond girl Monica Bellucci star in this French thriller from exciting director Léa Mysius, which tracks a seemingly happy but under-pressure marriage, an intricately planned birthday celebration, and a social media moment that will impact everyone involved.
BROKEN ENGLISH //// THE BEST SUMMER
The Sydney Film Festival has a long history of fore-fronting excellent music documentaries, and alongside profiles on Jack Johnson and Bob Dylan, this year’s fest also features Broken English, which takes an unconventional, experimental approach to the fascinating career of late singer and major Rolling Stones influence Marianne Faithfull, and The Best Summer, a comp of backstage footage, performances and interviews put together by Unsung Auteur Tamra Davis from the 1995 Australian music festival Summersault.
THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER
Just as the western is something of a Holy Grail for American directors, so the samurai genre is to their Japanese counterparts. Veteran director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Cure, Tokyo Sonata) draws his sword on the oft-trodden genre with The Samurai and the Prisoner, which takes a more stately approach to its tropes, layering in elements of detective fiction and approaching proceedings through a distinctly character-based lens.
BOSS CAT //// RETREAT
Accessibility and inclusivity have always been a major part of The Sydney Film Festival, and this year’s installment features two of the best examples of that philosophy yet. Made by the groundbreaking Bus Stop Films (which offers inclusive filmmaking programs for individuals with disabilities), Boss Cat tracks a young woman born with Down Syndrome trying to break out on her own through the dance-form of krumping, while the UK thriller Retreat features an all-deaf cast and asks many probing questions about deafness and disability.
BODY BLOW
Aussie director Dean Francis (Drown) lets himself off the leash with glorious abandon for the wild, rainbow-hued thriller Body Blow, which sees a disgraced cop (Tim Pocock) sent deep undercover into the pulsing, sweaty, drug-fuelled world of Sydney’s gay nightlife scene. Visually audacious, thematically daring, and Sydney to its core, this cult-film-waiting-to-happen also features showstopping performances from Aussie legends Paul Capsis (Head On) and Sacha Horler (Praise).
For all information about The Sydney Film Festival, click here.
