Sydney Film Festival 2016

By Ben Stephens.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, well one of the many. The smell of fresh red carpet wafting throughout the city, the blue media walls being prepped for their moment in the spotlight and of course, the ticket-purchase-enticing release of the first 26 titles gracing the screens around the city for the annual Sydney Film Festival 2016. Bring on June! We absolutely love to get all up and in the SFF, not only do we have the one of the most prestigious venues, the State Theatre, right next door to us, we just adore how the festival celebrates the magic of the big screen.

For a little background, this is the 63^rd year the Sydney Film Festival has showed its face, celebrating the finest productions curated by a talented festival team that source films from other world famous festivals such as Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and of course also big-up Australian productions. Over the 12 festival days, over 200 flicks will be shown all over the city.

To get you all riled up in for the festival programme launching next month, you can start imagining how a Martin Scorsese retrospective, curated by David Stratton will play out.

While up on the big screen, Demolition, staring Jake Gyllenhaal and our beloved Naomi Watts and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, will be enjoying a national premiere. Important to keep in mind that Variety Magazine said this was Gyllenhaal’s best performance since Brokeback Mountain – we put this in the ‘Do Not Miss’ basket.

Another predicted crowd pleaser is Maggie’s Plan. Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore and Greta Gerwig play out a somewhat unusual romantic comedy.

With some many more titles released for the festival, with throwbacks to the 80s with the Irish comedy Sing Street and even a ‘spiritual squeal’ to the 1993 cult classic, Dazed and Confused, is Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some.

With so many more titles in the initial release, check out the Sydney Film Festival website for the full list of documentaries, comedies, dramas and all those good things.

Sydney Film Festival runs from June 8 – 19, 2016.