by FilmInk Staff
First Films is back with 5 Australian Premieres, Unmissable New Daring Debuts and Queer Classics in 4K!
The 4th edition of First Films returns from 5–9 November at Golden Age Cinema and Bar. Staying true to its unique essence, the program showcases emerging directors’ new debut features for the first time ever in Sydney, alongside bold and explosive retrospective debuts.
This year’s edition presents its biggest lineup yet, featuring seven titles in total. Award-winning highlights include 2025 Sundance NEXT Special Jury Award Winner for Ensemble Cast, Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo), Hot Docs 2024 Emerging International Filmmaker Award winner XiXi and New Wave which was awarded a special jury mention at Tribeca.
Program highlights also include Kyuka Before Summer’s End, opening film of ACID 2024, a parallel section of Cannes; Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued, an intimate, hypnotic, playful, deliciously witty and entirely unforgettable film made for only $900 USD.
New 4K restorations of two classics will also be showcased for the first time in Sydney, the opening night film High Art (1998) from Academy Award nominee Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right); and Pink Narcissus (1971), a classic of queer cinema.
“I’m thrilled First Films is back for a 4th edition and pleased that year on year we are increasing the program slowly and sustainably. The festival was started to showcase films that will inspire filmmakers to be ambitious with form and this year’s program has that and much more, from the gutsy and singular Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued and award winner XiXi, which explores artistic collaboration like no other film I have seen.” said Paul Struthers, Founder and Festival Director.
Opening Night Film:
High Art Directed by Lisa Cholodenko | 1998 | 4K Restoration | Sydney Premiere
Winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Prize at Sundance and NewFest’s Opening Night Film in 1998, High Art is an enduring debut feature from Academy Award nominee Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right) and an evocative portrait of ambition, addiction, and passion in ’90s New York. Idle fascination blooms into intense connection when aspiring magazine editor Syd (Radha Mitchell) discovers her upstairs neighbour is Lucy Berliner (Ally Sheedy), a renowned yet reclusive photographer. As complex emotions and creative forces ignite, Syd lures Lucy out of early retirement when they begin an artistic collaboration. Syd and Lucy fervently fall deeper into each other’s aesthetic aims while manifesting their growing human desires, much to the chagrin of Lucy’s oft-drug-addled German actress girlfriend Greta (Patricia Clarkson).
This is a must-see opportunity to experience High Art‘s entrancing qualities and celebrate the legacy of a cultural touchstone of queer cinema in a gorgeous new restoration.
Official Selection:
Kyuka Before Summer’s End Directed by Kostis Charamountanis | 2024 | Sydney Premiere
Kyuka Before Summer’s End premiered as the Opening Film of ACID 2024, a parallel section of Cannes, and won multiple awards at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Kyuka Before Summer’s End is Kostis Charamountanis’ radiant feature debut that turns the summer holiday film on its head, with shades of Aftersun.
A family of three, father Babis and his twins Konstantinos and Elsa, sail to Paros for a sunlit summer escape. Amid turquoise waters and fleeting friendships, they meet Anna, a mysterious woman whose presence gently unravels their world.
With a strikingly fluid editing style and a hauntingly beautiful score composed by Charamountanis himself, the film reimagines the coming-of-age story as something intimate, poetic, and deeply human. Featuring luminous performances by Konstantinos Georgopoulos and Elsa Lekakou, Kyuka Before Summer’s End captures the shimmering fragility of youth and the pull of the unknown, leaving you longing to holiday on the breathtaking island of Paros.
PINK NARCISSUS Directed by James Bidgood | 1971 | 4K Restoration | Australian Premiere
A handsome, self-involved, and brooding young sex worker (Bobby Kendall) escapes the realities of his street life through a series of fantasies of incredible beauty. Obsessed with his own perceived perfection, he lives in a dreamworld of captivating colours, magnificent music, elaborate costumes and strikingly attractive males. In a series of eye-popping sequences he imagines himself in a variety of intense roles – from matador to Roman slave to harem leader – with his room as an exquisite jewel-encrusted retreat.
But reality constantly intrudes through the depraved lives of the other street people, the harsh and ugly sounds, and visits from his paying admirers. Ultimately, his narcissistic enchantment with his own beauty and lifestyle is marred by one great fear – aging and loss of his youth. At once phantasmagoric and kaleidoscopic, the stunning new restoration of this ’70s underground sensation burns just as bright – if not brighter.
DEBUT, OR, OBJECTS OF THE FIELD OF DEBRIS AS CURRENTLY CATALOGUED Directed by Julian Castronovo | 2025 | Australian Premiere
An intimate, hypnotic, playful, deliciously witty and entirely unforgettable film about the inner workings of a director. The film follows Julian, a young filmmaker who discovers a strange book connected to a vanished art forger and becomes convinced he has found the subject of his next project. As he begins to investigate, the story he is telling starts to fold back on itself. Clues appear where they should not, and the line between his film and his life begins to dissolve into a hybrid documentary that plays with form, truth and story.
Premiering at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and screening at MoMA’s Doc Fortnight and the Los Angeles Festival of Movies, this feature made on a mere $900 budget, filmed almost entirely in director Julian Castronovo’s bedroom, glows with an uncanny, dreamlike and raw texture. Every image feels unearthed from a forgotten archive, full of flicker, shadow, and quiet revelation. A rare cinematic event, a handmade film that transforms limitation into an internet fuelled visual cultural mash-up.
NEW WAVE Directed by Elizabeth Ai | 2024 | Australian Premiere
Receiving a Special Jury Mention for Best New Documentary Director at Tribeca 2024, Elizabeth Ai’s debut New Wave is a vivid exploration of her relationship with a Vietnamese music subculture. The film centres on her investigation of “new wave,” the popular 1980s musical phenomenon in the United States featuring Vietnamese artists and singers with big hairstyles, defiant attitudes, and joyful, infectious energy, a sound and style that shaped Ai’s own upbringing. Ai reconnects with the movement’s icons, including Lynda Trang Đài, who has performed in Sydney, and Ian “DJ BPM” Nguyen, tracing how their creativity and fearless spirit influenced their lives and the community they built. Through intimate interviews, epic archival performances, and glimpses into everyday life, New Wave reveals the humour, audacity, and resilience of a generation that refused to be invisible. The film also reflects on Ai’s personal journey, intertwining family, music, and memory into a celebration of identity, art, and self-expression.
XIXI Directed by Wu Fan | 2024 | Australian Premiere
Winner of the Emerging International Filmmaker Award at Hot Docs 2024, Wu Fan’s debut XiXi entwines a story of two artists, creative collaboration and motherhood.
Fan meets Chinese performance artist XiXi, a daring and magnetic artist in Berlin, and is captivated by her freedom and artistry. As their connection grows over many years of correspondence and shared time across continents, Fan witnesses the consequences of XiXi’s free-spirited choices, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes controversial, and reflects on her own path and the expectations she has inherited from her maternal line.
Through intimate video diaries, performances, and glimpses of daily life, the film examines the tension between desire, autonomy, and cultural constraint. It uncovers intergenerational wounds while showing how art and friendship can provide spaces to confront them. XiXi is an unapologetic, radical and intensely personal journey about motherhood, resilience, creativity, and the courage required to live authentically.
MAD BILLS TO PAY (OR DESTINY, DILE QUE NO SOY MALO) Directed by Joel Alfonso Vargas | 2025 | Australian Premiere
NEXT Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and celebrated at Berlinale and First Films’ favourite festival, New Directors/New Films, Mad Bills to Pay (Destiny, dile que no soy malo) announces the arrival of a bold new voice, director Joel Alfonso Vargas.
Set in a tight-knit Dominican American community in The Bronx, the film follows Rico (Juan Collado), a young hustler selling bootleg “nutcracker” cocktails, chasing summer adventures, and navigating messy teenage love with Destiny (Destiny Checo). When Destiny moves in with his family, their apartment becomes a chaotic stage for laughter, heartbreak, and the harsh lessons of growing up fast in a city that never waits.
Teeming with street-cast talent, Vargas delivers a raw, authentic, and tender portrait of urban life. With humour, grit, and intimacy, Mad Bills to Pay introduces a filmmaker whose vision is impossible to ignore.
About First Films
First Films, is a film festival dedicated to introducing Sydney audiences to new daring debut works from emerging directors and significant retrospective debuts. First Films aims to challenge, inspire and entertain.
First Films Dates/Venue
5th – 9th November – Golden Age Cinema and Bar
Ticket Prices: Adult Single Ticket $24 | Concession Ticket $19.50
Book your tickets now at https://www.ourgoldenage.com.au/film-series/first-films-2025
