SXSW Sydney has announced the full line-up for its screen festival, with a raft of upcoming local film and television titles joining the previously revealed features and shorts.
Included among the more than 75 film and TV screenings are upcoming Netflix documentary ONEFOUR: Against All Odds, Tim Barretto’s Bassendream, Mark Leonard Winter’s The Rooster, Tim Carlier’s Paco, Raghuvir Joshi’s Sahela, Thomas Charles Hyland’s This Is Going to be Big, Jason Raftopoulos’ Voices in Deep, Matt Vesely’s Monolith, and Alice Maio Mackay’s Satranic Panic, as well as upcoming SBS series Erotic Stories and Night Bloomers, and ABC vertical series The Disposables.
There is also a First Nations spotlight, along with 20 music videos and 13 XR projects.
SXSW Sydney head of screen Ghita Loebenstein said the line-up leaned into the event’s “sister pillars” across music, games and tech, celebrating where the forms and communities converged.
“Like our Austin counterparts, our festival presents global programming from leading creators, and
our unique offer is this distinctive Asia Pacific lens,” she said.
“Most of all, SXSW Sydney is a festival which earnestly centres on vision, irreverence and fun.”
Whereas SXSW has a Headliner section, SXSW Sydney will have a Galas thread of five films, of which opening night film The Royal Hotel and world premiere Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles have already been announced.
ONEFOUR: Against All Odds, a Netflix documentary commission written and directed by Gabriel Gasparinatos that tracks the meteoric rise of the Sydney-based, Pacific Islander drill rap group, will also have its world premiere in the section. Emerald Fennell’s sophomore feature Saltburn, starring Australia’s Jacob Elordi, and Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus from Japanese-American director Neo Sora are the other two Gala films.
As with Austin, SXSW Sydney will incorporate a Visions section, which will act as the screen festival’s main slate and highlight bold and emerging cinema across narrative, documentary and hybrid disciplines.
The Australian contingent draws from some of what has already been seen on the festival circuit so far, with Bassendream and Paco having screened at Revelation in Perth, while This Is Going to be Big, The Rooster, and Voices in Deep were part of this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, and Sahela comes direct from the Adelaide Film Festival.
Violeta Ayala’s La Lucha and Thomas Tancred’s Last Stop Larrimah, co-productions with Bolivia and the US, respectively, are also part of Visions, as is New Zealand coming-of-age drama Uproar from directors Hamish Bennett and Paul Middleditch.
In the Midnighters section, Monolith can lay claim to being featured in two iterations of the “scary, funny, and culty” thread in the same year after being included as part of SXSW in Austin in March.
It is one of three Australian titles in the slate of ten films, alongside Alice Maio Mackay’s upcoming horror Satranic Panic and the previously announced You’ll Never Find Me from Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell.
You’ll Never Find Me and Voices in Deep have also been announced as in-competition features alongside Jiayin Liu’s All Ears (China), Wregas Bhanuteja’s Andragogy (Indonesia), Yui Kiyohara’s Remembering Every Night (Japan), Yuhan Teng’s Gagaland (China), Daisuke Miyazaki’s Plastic (Japan), Miko Revereza’s Nowhere Near (Philippines), Ben Mullinkosson’s The Last Year of Darkness (US/China), and Taku Aoyagi’s Tokyo Uber Blues (Japan).
Public broadcasters are well represented in the TV premieres section, which will feature the world premiere of Lingo Pictures’ SBS anthology Erotic Stories and the Australian premiere of Andrew Undi Lee’s Digital Original Night Bloomers. Renny Wijeyamohan and Sonia Whiteman’s The Disposables, which debuts on the ABC this Friday, will also be screened.
Local talent is showcased in SXSW shorts program in the form of the Bush Shorts, a package of First Nations titles that comprises Jahvis Loveday’s Bangay Lore, Edoardo Crismani’s Black Time, White Time, Gary Hamaguchi’s Marlu man, Travis Akbar’s Tambo, Adam Jenkins’ The Getaway, Sam Lovell and Jack Blackburn’s The Tale of Mr. Kimberly and Jake Duczynski’s Wanmari.
The titles are part of the First Nations program of features and shorts curated by Winda Film Festival founder Pauline Clague that spans five countries.
Clague said the chosen filmmakers represent the “voices of tomorrow”.
“The features and shorts in the Winda selection highlights diverse and important storytelling at SXSW Sydney, ensuring First Nations and Indigenous stories are at the forefront,” she said.
Other SXSW screen highlights include an XR Showcase featuring five Australian projects. Of those, Joseph Purdam’s Julaymba, Shaun Gladwell’s Libertas Vanitas, and Mod’s Through the Eyes of Our Ancestors will be having their world premiere.
There will also be a special presentation of Lynette Wallworth’s Awavena 2.0.
It is one of several special presentations to be staged at the event, joining Joel Anderson’s feature debut Lake Mungo and Jonathan Demme’s Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense.
As part of the screen festival’s public program, there will be free outdoor screenings at Tumbalong Park with titles such as Taika Waititi’s What We Do In The Shadows and Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell.
The SXSW Sydney Screen Festival will take place October 15-22.