Sydney's State Theatre.
The 63rd Sydney Film Festival has unveiled 26 new films to be featured in this year’s June 8-19 event.
They include Demolition, from Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallée, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts; Maggie’s Plan, starring Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Greta Gerwig and Vikings star Travis Fimmel; and Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia.
Other features coming to Sydney are Irish comedy Sing Street, starring Game of Thrones' Aidan Gillen and directed by Once's John Carney, and Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!, a "spiritual sequel" to his 1993 film Dazed and Confused.
Also in the line-up is Sundance 2016 Grand Jury Prize for US Documentary winner Weiner, about former congressman Anthony Weiner, the subject of two sexting scandals, and his wife Huma Abedin; A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers, by festival guest Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and co-director Geeta Gandbhir, following 160 predominantly Muslim Bangladeshi policewomen on a difficult mission overseas; the Janis Joplin doc Janis: Little Girl in Blue; and Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog.
This year's SFF will also screen Terence Davies' Sunset Song, and Desde allá (From Afar), the winner of the Golden Globe Lion at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, as well as Indonesian director Joko Anwar’s A Copy of My Mind; black and white film Tharlo, winner of the 2015 Tokyo Filmex Grand Prize by 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.
Other documentaries include Sonita, Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami's film about rapping Afghani refugee, activist and social media sensation Sonita Alizadeh; No Home Movie, a portrait of the late Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman’s relationship with her mother, a Polish immigrant and Auschwitz survivor; Werner Herzog's doc internet-doc Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected; and Mr. Gaga, which celebrates influential choreographer, IsraeliOhad Naharin, artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company.
The full Sydney Film Festival program will be announced on May 11.