By Cara Nash
Leading the titles announced today is the darkly comic Demolition from Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallée, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a young man who deals with the loss of his wife by writing elaborate letters of complaint to a vending machine company. Also on the bill is Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!, a “spiritual sequel” to his 1993 teen classic Dazed and Confused, and the director’s follow-up to Boyhood, one of the festival’s most popular films in 2014. Linklater’s regular collaborator, Ethan Hawke, will appear at the festival in Rebecca Miller’s offbeat romantic comedy Maggie’s Plan, which co-stars Julianne Moore and indie “It Girl” Greta Gerwig.
Other highlights include Russian mastermind Alexander Sokurov’s love letter to the Louvre, Francofonia, a follow up to his one-shot wonder, Russian Ark. Danish auteur Thomas Vinterberg’s (The Celebration, The Hunt) new 70s-set drama, The Commune, will screen and is inspired by the filmmaker’s own experience growing up in a commune. Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars and is a powerful portrait of sisterhood in Turkey, has also been announced.
John Carney (Begin Again, Once) delivers another music-centric tale with Sing Street, a portrait of 80’s Dublin that offers up a soundtrack of nostalgia as well as a host of original new songs; while veteran British director Terence Davies adapts Lewis Grassic Gibbons’ Scottish literary classic Sunset Song, with model turned actress Agyness Deyn in the lead role.
Edgy features include renowned Indonesian director Joko Anwar’s (Joni’s Promise) A Copy of My Mind, a new drama providing comment on Indonesia’s political climate; black and white film Tharlo, from Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden; and Chad Hartigan’s multi-Sundance 2016 award winner Morris from America, a hip-hop infused portrait of an African-American teenager in a new land.
One Australian feature has been announced in The Devil’s Candy, the sophomore feature from writer/director Sean Byrne who impressed with 2009’s slow-burning horror pic The Loved Ones, and it promises to be another stylish descent into madness and murder.
Documentaries are always one of the hottest tickets at Sydney Film Festival and 2016 looks to be no exception. Legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog explores the Internet and the connected world in Lo and Behold, while Amy Berg (who directed 2012’s West of Memphis) delves into the life and career of uncompromising rocker Janis Joplin in her eye-opening biopic Janis: Little Girl In Blue.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (who will also be a guest at the festival) and co-director Geeta Gandbhir, follow 160 predominantly Muslim Bangladeshi policewomen on a difficult mission overseas in A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers. Another highlight (and a film which director Jennifer Peedom recently raved to us about!) is Sonita, which follows rapping Afghani refugee and social media sensation, Sonita Alizadeh, who is being sold as a child bride.
The full Sydney Film Festival program will be announced on Wednesday 11 May at 11am. The festival runs June 8-19. For the complete round-up so far, visit the festival website.
