Alex Russell in Ivan Sen's Goldstone.
The full Sydney Film Festival line-up was unveiled this morning by SFF director Nashen Moodley, with five Australian feature premieres and eight Aussie documentary premieres.
In a coup for the festival, this year's Talks program at Sydney Town Hall's Hub will include a free talk with Mel Gibson, whose Blood Father is playing at the fest, as well as in-conversation events with Australian filmmakers such as Ivan Sen.
Sen's Goldstone, the festival's opening night film, will also feature in the official competition.
Other Aussie premieres include Abe Forsythe's Cronulla black comedy Down Under, Craig Boreham's queer drama Teenage Kicks, playwright Stephen Sewell's directorial debut Embedded, and Craig Anderson's thriller Red Christmas, starring E.T.'s Dee Wallace.
Also in the line-up are Aussie titles that premiered overseas last year, such as Beast, the McKeith brothers' Manila-set boxing drama that comes to SFF after a Toronto premiere in 2015, Rosemary Myers' Girl Asleep (Adelaide/Berlin) and Sean Byrne's (The Loved Ones) The Devil's Candy.
This year's SFF also includes two Australian restorations, of Ray Lawrence's Bliss and and Rowan Woods' The Boys.
The festival also highlights the VR frontier in their Down the Rabbit Hole – Virtual Reality at the Hub sidebar, which will screen nine virtual reality films running over the course of the festival.
Also premiering is Damian Walshe-Howling's short film MESSiAH, starring David Gulpilil (also starring in Goldstone).
The ten Australian short films in the Dendy Awards will screen over two sessions on June 18 and 19, and prize winners will be announced on closing night, along with the Event Cinemas Australian Short Screenplay Award – for short-form writers with shorts in the festival.
In one of the festival's biggest new initiatives, the Lexus Australia Short Film Fellowship will be awarded to four young filmmakers on June 14, chosen by a jury headed by Judy Davis. Each of the four will receive $50,000 to make a short to premiere at next year's festival.