SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL 2025
First Films
The Sydney Film Festival (SFF) has only unveiled the first few films of its 2025 lineup, but we are already excited about the documentaries in their lineup. Highlights from the announced films include:
- Ellis Park – Warren Ellis, the brilliant Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds musician, reveals his life’s ups and downs as well as his dedication to wildlife in Justin Kurzel’s (Snowtown) doco debut.
- Mr. Nobody Against Putin – This urgent, Sundance prize-winning documentary follows a brave and charismatic Russian teacher as he exposes shocking new propaganda at his school amid the invasion of Ukraine.
- exergue – on documenta 14 – Over 14 incredible hours, this monumental, addictive documentary follows curator Adam Szymczyk and his team as they assemble the world’s most prominent art exhibition, documenta.
Check out SFF website for more info.
Restored Documentaries @Cinema Reborn
Film Festival
30 APRIL – 6 MAY 2025 Sydney
The Cinema Reborn Film Festival returns for its 5th year premiering restored film classics from Australia and around the world. Cinema Reborn’s focus is on screen heritage and preservation and is intended to shine a light on the long history of the art of the cinema, the worldwide activity of film restoration and the treasures that exist in the world’s film archives. With their biggest lineup to date, the festival includes multiple Australian and world premieres of 4K and 2K film restorations screening at the Ritz Cinemas in Randwick.
Below, you can learn more about the four documentary screenings included in this year’s screenings.
TEN YEARS AFTER…TEN YEARS OLDER (1986) + THE BUTLER (1997)
Celebrating the late Cypriot-Australian filmmaker Anna Kannava with her duology of personal documentaries Ten Years After…Ten Years Older (1986) and The Butler (1997). Born in Cyprus, Kannava migrated to Melbourne with her family in 1974. In the meditative Ten Years After…Ten Years Older, the director tenderly reflects on returning to her homeland after a decade away. In the deftly comedic and deeply affecting The Butler, Kannava impressionistically portrays the life she shared with her devoted younger brother Nino. These two key works reveal a gifted filmmaker deserving of widespread recognition.
4K RESTORATION
4.15pm, Sat May 3
LEILA AND THE WOLVES (1984)
With the power characterising her filmic narrative style, a masterful and unique blend of documentation and surrealism, Heiny Srour unapologetically discloses, with the first scene of Leila and the Wolves, the poetics of a script that in 1979 was enthusiastically welcomed by the Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique (ACCT, Agency of Cultural and Technical Cooperation), which had been established in 1970 at Niamei, Niger, upon the initiative of the then President of Senegal, Léopold Senghor, to bring together twenty-one francophone states. Today, the film is considered Srour’s masterpiece; it is both a deep appraisal of the intertwining colonial histories of Palestine and Lebanon, and a sharp critique of the erasure of women’s participation in the resistance movements.
2K RESTORATION
12.30pm, SAT MAY 3
ON A FULL MOON (1997) + THE MINI-SKIRTED DYNAMO (1996)
Rivka Hartman’s The Mini-skirted Dynamo focuses on her mother, Dr Dora Bialestock, an extraordinary figure in Melbourne’s medical community. Dora studied Medicine at the University of Melbourne and published widely on her specialist research subjects. She became a figure of some controversy when she attacked the state government’s management of children in care. She was a public thorn in many sides of government. Hartman’s film is a remarkable autobiographical and biographical documentary about the intense and tangled relationship between the filmmaker and her mother, both of whom had ambitions and goals that did not mix well. The film also screens with Hartman’s On a Full Moon which features memories of childhood and family lovingly animated frame by frame by pencil and pastel on paper.
4K RESTORATION
12.15pm, SUN MAY 4
BREAD AND DRIPPING (1982) + HOW THE WEST WAS LOST (1987)
David Noakes’ How The West Was Lost is a groundbreaking account of the 1946 Pilbara Strike. The strike was more than a demand for better wages and conditions. It was, in the words of Keith Connolly in the Melbourne Herald, “a well-considered statement by a grievously exploited people, standing up for their rights and dignity”. How The West Was Lost tells the story of a shameful yet still largely unknown piece of Australia’s tangled history. It screens alongside Bread and Dripping, a documentary short made by the collective Wimminsfilms. The short focuses on four women recounting their lives during the bleak years of the Depression of the 1930s. Tibby Whalan, Eileen Pittman, Beryl Armstrong and Mary Wright describe their struggles to survive and maintain families when faced with widespread unemployment, evictions and hardship.
4K RESTORATION
6.00pm, TUE MAY 6
Fill the Antenna-shaped void in your life with DocPlay, the streaming home of the world’s best documentaries. Discover almost 2000 films and series from across the globe, including Academy Award-winners, festival favourites, and an expansive collection of bingeable series from seminal documentarian Ken Burns.
- NO OTHER LAND – Winner of this year’s Best Documentary Academy Award®, No Other Land is a sobering and stark portrait of resistance under occupation.
- BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN – Told in Led Zeppelin’s own words, this box office smash hit is the first officially sanctioned film on the legendary rock group. A must-see for Zepp-heads!
- AUM: THE CULT AT THE END OF THE WORLD: Premiering at Sundance Film Festival, and released to commemorate 30 years since their infamous sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway, Aum: The Cult at the End of the World explores the story of the notorious Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult.
- 2073 – Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia (Amy) transports us to a future foreshadowed by the terrifying realities of our present moment.
