Local flavour for Sydney Film Festival

The Sydney Film Festival will open and close with Australian films and feature three local features in competition for the Sydney Film Prize.

Neil Armfield’s second feature film as director, Holding The Man, is to be shown at the Sydney Film Festival.

The Sydney Film Festival will open and close with Australian films and feature three local features in competition for the Sydney Film Prize.

The adaptation of Tommy Murphy’s hit stage show Holding The Man will close the June festival, which opens with another stage adaptation, Brendan Cowell’s Ruben Guthrie.

Holding The Man is the former Company B Belvoir artistic director Neil Armfield’s second feature film as director after Candy and stars Ryan Corr, Craig Stott, Guy Pearce and Anthony LaPaglia.

The debut feature from another star of Australian theatre will be among the 12 films competing for the $62,000 Sydney Film Prize. Simon Stone’s The Daughter, a contemporary reimagining of The Wild Duck, which stars Geoffrey Rush and Ewen Leslie, is one of three local films in competition, with Jennifer Peedom’s documentary Sherpa and Kim Farrant’s debut feature Strangerland, starring Nicole Kidman.

Other films competing are: Miguel Gomes’ three-volume Arabian Nights, Italian crime drama Black Souls; Sundance hit Me and Earl and the Dying Girl; Venice Golden Lion winner A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence; Iranian films Tales and Jafar Panahi’s Tehran Taxi; LA comedy Tangerine; German drama Victoria and French “superhero” film Vincent.

NSW Arts Minister Troy Grant pledged another $2000 to raise the Sydney Film Prize to $62,000 to celebrate the fest’s 62nd anniversary

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, director of Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, will be a guest In Conversation and the festival has teamed with Screen Australia’s Indigenous Department to present two programs, Songlines On Screen and Pitch Black Shorts.

Among the features selected for “Special Presentations” at the State Theatre are Jeremy Sims’ Australian adaptation of the stage play Last Cab To Darwin, starring Michael Caton and Jacki Weaver, Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes, Bill Condon’s Mr Holmes starring Ian McKellan as the detective and Susanne Bier’s A Second Chance.

The SFF Drive-In returns at Blacktown and The Weekend Australian’s David Stratton will present a retrospective of Ingmar Bergman’s work. Festival director Nashen Modley will also present a Focus on South Africa, his homeland.

The Sydney Film Festival runs 3-14 June and will screen about 200 films from 50 countries. The full program is at sff.org.au