GREAT news for lovers of film: the 2020 Sydney Film Festival lives again - but in new and more accessible ways.
The festival, now its 67th year, was due to be held at Sydney cinemas from June 3-14 but was cancelled for the first time due to the coronavirus epidemic.
But now it can be seen on home TV and computer screens around the country as never before. While the virtual festival won't be screening any films at physical venues, it will instead run a slimmed-down program shown entirely online from June 10-21.
From a documentary following a group of determined local women and their 14-year fight for the right to work in Wollongong's steel industry in Women of Steel, to the exploration of the life of Indigenous Australian activist and veteran Douglas Grant in The Skin of Others and a sci-fi horror/thriller about a giant jellyfish that wreaks havoc on a fishing trawler there's plenty to keep everyone entertained.
The festival program is divided into four strands. They are: Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Best Australian Documentary; The Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films; Europe! Voices of Women in Film and Screenability, a platform for film-makers with disabilities.
The festival also partnered with SBS On Demand to present a collection of 40 Sydney Film Festival titles to binge on for free from June 10 to July 10.
Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Best Australian Documentary
In this award, 10 new Australian films - including eight world premieres- are in the running for the title of Best Australian Documentary, generously supported by the foundation.
Festival-goers can pay to watch all 10 documentaries on demand over the 12 days of the festival with the Documentary Australia Foundation Award Bundle and films can also be rented individually.
They include The Skin of Others, a portrait of Aboriginal World War II soldier Douglas Grant's life, starring the late Balang Tom E. Lewis in his final role and Our Law, an exclusive snapshot of WA's first Indigenous-run police station.
Others up for the prize include Women of Steel as well as Descent, about one of the world's daring professional ice free divers, and A Hundred Years of Happiness, a look into the life of a young woman in Vietnam as she prepares to migrate to South Korea for an arranged marriage.
The winning film will be announced and presented with a $10,000 cash prize at SFF's Virtual Awards Ceremony on June 18.
Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films
SFF's short film competition has launched the careers of directors, writers, producers, cinematographers, and other film creatives in its 51-year history.
This year 10 finalists will compete for three prizes: the Dendy Live Action Short Award, the Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director, and the Yoram Gross Animation Award, announced at the Festival's Virtual Awards Ceremony on June 18.
Finalists include Grevillea, in which an incarcerated Jewish teen encounters a tattooist with unclear intentions when he decides to get a tattoo, against the conventions of his religion and Idol, in which a young Chinese celebrity is called into an emergency meeting with his manager after a fan's suicide.
There's also I Want to Make a Film About Women - a queer love letter to Russian revolutionary women artists of the 1920s, speculating on what they said, did and might have created had it not been for Stalin's suppression.
Europe! Voices of Women in Film
From Germany to Finland, and Kosovo to Estonia, Europe! Voices of Women in Film shines a spotlight women filmmakers.
Check out a selection of 10 films that traverse family dramas, a gritty love story, gender stereotypes and more. They include Sea Fever a gripping sci-fi thriller in which the crew of an Irish fishing trawler fall prey to a deadly sea creature in this gripping sci-fi thriller and Poland's Lessons of Love - a candid portrait of a woman going her own way after separating from her abusive husband of 45 years.
Also in the running are Charter, a Swedish film exploring the complexities of parenting in which a woman abducts her children for an illicit trip to the Canary Islands during a bitter custody dispute and Kids Run, a gritty German film about a desperate young father who enters an amateur boxing match in hopes of winning its cash prize for his family.
Screenability
Three short films will be showcased as part of the Screenability platform for screen practitioners with disability.
Multi-disciplinary artist Emily Dash's Groundhog Night stars Australian heavyweight actors Chris Haywood, Robyn Nevin and Susan Prior while award-winning theatre director Anthea Williams' film Safety Net is about a cheeky 12-year-old boy in emergency care. Former Youth Paralympian Adam Bowes co-directs Diving In with Nina Oyama.
Binge-worthy and free
The festival has also partnered with SBS On Demand to present Sydney Film Festival Selects. Curated by festival director Nashen Moodley, the movie collection features 40 of his all-time favourite Sydney Film Festival titles for Australians to binge, anytime, anywhere, for free, from June 10 to July 10.
Highlights include Academy Award-nominated Belgian drama The Broken Circle Breakdown, Studio Ghibli's animated fantasy fable The Red Turtle, last year's Best Australian Documentary winner She Who Must Be Loved and Certain Women, starring Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart and Michelle Williams.
For the full list of titles, go to www.sbs.com.au/movies/sydney-film-festival
And if that isn't enough to tickle your fancy, We are One: A Global Film Festival is an online film festival screening now on YouTube.
Featuring a selections from more than 40 of the world's greatest film festivals, such as Cannes, Sundance, Berlin and Tribeca, more 35 countries are represented in the collection.
The SFF's contribution will be two ground-breaking Australian films from Indigenous directors: Mabo (Rachel Perkins) and Mystery Road (Ivan Sen).
Other highlights include the online premiere of Eeb Allay Ooo!, a unique satire about professional "monkey repellers", the world premiere of Iron Hammer, a documentary directed by Joan Chen about legendary Chinese Olympic volleyball star Jenny Lang Ping and Francis Ford Coppola in conversation with Steven Soderbergh.
Audiences will also have access to more than 50 narrative and documentary shorts, including the first short pieces made by Dreamworks Animation: Bilby, Marooned and Bird Karma and And She Could Be Next, a documentary mini-series about women of color as political candidates.
How to get tickets
Tickets for all four strands of the festival are available from the official Sydney Film Festival website. Ticket package prices range from $5 to $199 for all films. For more go to www.sff.org.au
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