The 2024 Antenna Documentary Film Festival will be held in Sydney towards the end of February, showcasing a selection of creative, thought-provoking documentaries from around the globe over 11 days.

The Australian premiere of Maria Fredriksson’s The Gullspång Miracle will open the festival. The film follows two pious sisters who buy an apartment after having witnessed a divine sign – only to realise that the seller looks identical to their other sister, who committed suicide some thirty years before. What starts as a story of family reunification, turns into a stranger-than-fiction mystery-drama.

In a new exciting partnership with the Sydney Opera House, the festival will close with the Australian Premiere of the Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, a concert film that captures Sakamoto’s last performance. A celebration of an artist’s life in the purest sense, this is the definitive swan song of the beloved maestro.

Other highlights include the Australian Premiere of The World is Family from director Anand Patwardhan, who will attend the festival as a special guest. In his most personal film yet, Patwardhan paints a portrait of his parents, whose families were intertwined with Gandhi and India’s independence movement.

There is also Wang Bing’s Youth (Spring), Werner Herzog’s Theatre of Thought, Claire Simon’s Our Body, and Alex Gibney’s In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, as well as films that go behind the headlines to offer a new perspective on global stories, such as Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias, Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol,  Robert Monderie, Richard Desjardins’ The Invisible Nation.