Festival Director Michelle Carey commented “MIFF is thrilled to be presenting The Sapphires straight from Cannes. Not only is this one of the most anticipated Australian films of the year, a Victorian story and a brilliant filmmaking team, the film will leave audiences on an immense high, ready to kick up their heels at what is sure to be one of the most celebratory parties of the year.”

The Sapphires is written by Tony Briggs and based on the remarkable true story of his mother’s time in The Sapphires – Australia’s answer to The Supremes, and their tour of the troops in Vietnam. Starring Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids), Deborah Mailman (Bran Nue Dae, MIFF 09), Jessica Mauboy (Bran Nue Dae, MIFF 09), Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell,The Sapphires is a heart-warming and distinctly Australian celebration of youth, courage, love and family, featuring an unbeatable soundtrack of glorious Motown-era soul music.

Tickets can be purchased for the opening night from the MIFF Official site.

MIFF announced their Next Gen program last week. MIFF’s First Glance of the program is out on 5 June. On 11 July members can start buying tickets from the full program, announced on 13 July.

The Sapphires will be released in Australia on 9 August 2012 from Hopscotch.

The official site describes the program as “entertaining and challenging cinema aimed at a younger audience. Films screening during the week are programmed with teachers and students from upper primary to upper secondary year levels in mind. Films screened on the weekend are designed for families and community groups”.

A mix of animation, drama and documentary, the films on the Next Gen program are:

• 11 Flowers – China/France (110 mins, dir. Wang Xiaoshui)
• A Letter to Momo - Japan (120 mins, dir. Hiroyuki Okiura)
• A Monster in Paris - France (87 mins, dir. Bibo Bergeron)
• Bully - USA (99 mins, dir. Lee Hirsch)
• First Position - USA (94 mins, dir. Bess Kargman)
• Kauwboy - Netherlands (81 mins, dir. Boudewijn Koole)
• Le Tableau - France (76 mins, dir. Jean-François Laguionie)
• Only the Young + Inocente - USA (68 mins, dir. Elizabeth Mims and Jason Tippet / 40 mins, dir. Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine)
• Paranorman - USA (TBA, dir. Chris Butler and Sam Fell)
• The Mirror Never Lies - Indonesia (100 mins, dir. Kamila Andini)
• Wild Bill - UK (98 mins, dir. Dexter Fletcher)
• Wunderkinder - Germany (100 mins, dir. Marcus Rosenmüller)

So what about the rest of the program? The MIFF Opening Night film will be unveiled next week on May 15, with a First Glance of the program on 5 June. On 11 July members can start buying tickets from the full program, announced on 13 July.

For the record, and in the interest of intercity rivalry, 11 Flowers, Bully and First Position will also be playing at the Sydney Film Festival in June.

MIFF 2012 will run from 2 – 19 August 2012 across Melbourne. Dates and screening times can be found on the official site.

Best known for the better part of the last decade as Ted Moseby on TV’s How I Met Your Mother, Josh Radnor made his directorial debut with the audience-pleasing Happythankyoumoreplease in 2010. The winner of the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and a nominee for the Grand Jury Prize the same year, it is wonderful to see that Radnor has not only returned to writing and directing, but has brought one of the better reflections on the mid-30s funk that is all too familiar to anybody with a liberal arts and social sciences background.

Thirty-something Jesse (Josh Radnor) is recently single and bored with his job in university admissions. With his head constantly buried in a book, he worries life has passed him by. When his favourite college professor Peter Hoberg (Richard Jenkins) invites him back to his old campus to speak at a retirement dinner, he quickly accepts the offer and heads off for a weekend of nostalgia. However, there he meets Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen), a forthright undergraduate who sparks feelings in Jesse that he thought he’d lost for good.

The coming-of-age genre has increasingly shifted over the last few decades to studies of people in their 20s and 30s, and this is perhaps indicative of the uncertainty a world of choice brings with it. Radnor’s heartfelt exploration of the impotency that accompanies the ambiguous career paths of a liberal arts/humanities/social science degree is a genuine one, and undoubtedly something that a number of people of a similar age (who didn’t go on to a successful acting career) will share with the filmmaker. Radnor contrasts this dilemma with the ageing character of Hoberg, flawlessly played by the incomparable Jenkins, who is having his own crisis of faith at the tail end of a career Jesse wishes he had followed to some extent.

Radnor transplants enough of his television persona into Jesse to make him instantly accessible, but this is not simply a retread of his previous work. Olsen continues to dominate the indie world after an impressive debut last year in Martha Marcy May Marlene, but here she has a more concrete persona to latch onto. Yet what sells Liberal Arts is that this is a romantic comedy that develops a believable romance between Jesse and someone almost half his age, and doesn’t quite take you where you expect. This sense of the offbeat is embodied in the guru Nat (Zac Efron), who doesn’t attend college but irregularly turns up to dispense sage wisdom from his bottle of water.

Liberal Arts marks the continuation of a strong storytelling voice in Radnor, who hipefully focus more on this kind of filmmaking when his television children eventually find out how he met their mother. Smart, funny and sincere, not to mention being beautifully shot by Seamus Tierney (Veronika Decides to Die) – possibly boosting Ohio university admissions – this is a film that you should let wash over you.

Liberal Arts debuted at Sundance in January 2012, and Sundance London in April 2012.. It will play at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2012, and be released theatrically in Australia on 11 October 2012 from Icon.

The festival will open on 6 June 2012 with Australia’s Not Suitable for Children, from Australian director Peter Templeman, starring Ryan Kwanten, Sarah Snook, Ryan Corr and Bojana Novakovic. The closing night film just 12 days later is the wonderful Safety Not Guaranteed, which we were lucky to see at Sundance London last month. Of the remaining films, 18 are world premieres, 106 Australian premieres, 31 Australian productions and films from 51 countries in 49 languages. Check out this Trailer for the quick overview. Regular festival goers will no doubt see this several dozen times by the time the festival is done.

If that isn’t exciting enough, Billy Connolly has been confirmed as a guest for the Australian premiere of Disney-Pixar’s Brave.

Films in Competition

Rachel Ward will be the 2012 Jury President for the FIAPF Accredited SFF Official Competition. The films competing for the $60,000 cash prize this year will be:

• Alps (Greece) |Australian Premiere | Director: Yorgos Lanthimos | Cast: Aggeliki Papoulia, Aris Servetalis, Johnny Vekris
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (USA) |Australian Premiere|Director: Benh Zeitlin | Cast: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry
• Caesar Must Die (Italy) | Australian Premiere | Directors: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani | Cast: Cosimo Rega, Salvatore Striano
• Dead Europe (Australia) | World Premiere | Director: Tony Krawitz | Cast: Ewen Leslie, Marton Csokas, Kodi Smit-McPhee
• Gangs of Wasseypur (India) | Australian Premiere | Director: Anurag Kashyap|Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Richa Chaddha, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Nawazuddin Siddique, Vineet Singh, Huma Qureshi, Reema Sen
• The King of Pigs (South Korea) | Australian Premiere | Director: Yuen Sang-ho | Cast: Yang Ik-june, Oh Jeong-se, Kim Hye-na
• Lore (Australia) | Australian Premiere | Director: Cate Shortland | Cast: Saskia Rosendahl, Nele Trebs, André Frid
• Monsieur Lazhar (Canada) | Australian Premiere | Director: Philippe Falardeau | Cast: Fellag, Sophie Nélisse, Émilien Néron
• Neighbouring Sounds (Brazil) | Australian Premiere | Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho | Cast: Irandhir Santos, Gustavo Jahn, Maeve Jinkings
• On the Road (USA) Australian Premiere | Director: Walter Salles | Cast: Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst
• Tabu (Portugal, Germany, Brazil, France) | Australian Premiere | Director: Miguel Gomes| Cast: Teresa Madruga, Laura Soveral, Ana Moreira, Carlotto Cotta
• Today (France, Senegal) | Australian Premiere | Director: Alain Gomis | Cast: Saül Williams, Djolof M’Bengue, Anisia Uzeyman

Highlights

While a number of the films will be released in the months following the festival for general release, perhaps indicative that we are seeing more films in the cinemas, half the joy of the SFF is seeing films earlier than the rest of the country. Quite a number of films from this year’s Sundance Film Festival have made it to our shores, along with a number of films competing at Cannes Film Festival next month, including Michael Haneke’s Amour, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, For Ellen and Walter Salles On the Road.

So what are we looking forward to? We can already highly recommend Woody Allen: A Documentary, Liberal Arts, Tatsumi  (which strangely screened at MIFF 2011),  and, of course, Colin Trevorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed. Here’s a few other quick picks to look out for:

• Beasts of the Southern Wild (USA) - Winner of the US Dramatic Grand Jury Prize in Sundance, this might be one of the “must see” films of the festival.

• Jeff Who Lives At Home (USA) – Directors Mark and Jay Duplass bring Jason Segel and Ed Helms together for an offbeat comedy about an aimless man who believes he is destined for something special.

• Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai 3D (Japan) – Following the sold-out sessions for SFF2011′s 13 Assassins, Takashi Miike’s latest jidaigeki is the first 3D film to screen in Competition at Cannes. The beautifully shot film, with a score by actor/composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, explores the notions of honour and the traditions of the samurai.

• Killer Joe (USA) – Legendary director William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) is this twisted fairy tale described as a “deep-fried Texas redneck trailer park murder story”. The cast is to “die for”: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Gina Gershon andThomas Haden Church.

• Rampart (USA) – Israeli director Oren Moverman’s follow-up to The Messenger once again stars Woody Harrelson, and is set in Los Angeles in 1999 and revolves around a trigger-happy cop whose brutality is out of step with the times.It’s supporting cast will also turn some heads: Ned Beatty, Ben Foster, Robin Wright, Ice Cube, Sigourney Weaver and Steve Buscemi.

The full program can be found on the SFF website.

Debut filmmaker Sheldon Candis has stepped into some pretty big shoes with his debut feature, a curious mixture of autobiography and HBO series The Wire. Drawing on his own formative years growing up in the infamous city of Baltimore as a “stoop” kid, observing but not partaking in the violence around him, his film school years found an artistic voice to express the realities of living in that environment. Candis’ Sundance debut may not hit all the right notes, but signals the arrival of someone to watch.

Woody (Michael Rainey Jr) is an 11-year-old boy waiting for the return of his missing mother. Living with his grandmother and his Uncle Vincent (Common), who has recently finished an 8 year stretch in prison, his outlook on the world is narrowed by his innocence. Haunted by his past, Vincent seeks to go legitimate with a waterfront business, but he struggles to raise the money. Spying a need to school Woody in the ways of being a man, Vincent takes the boy with him while he sorts out his affairs. However, Vincent’s past catches up with him, throwing Woody into the deep end of adulthood.

The gritty streets of Baltimore have served as the playground for a number of seriously good crime dramas over the last few decades, beginning with David Simon’s Homicide: Life on the Streets. Baltimore was elevated to inhumanly grand proportions with The Wire, which might be one of LUV‘s closest contemporaries. LUV doesn’t share The Wire‘s ambitious city-spanning hyperlinks, but rather singles out a day-in-the-life portrait of a father-figure and son. It is true that the events of this particular day are far from typical, and indeed the principal character arc is a fairly rapid one even by film standards. Like a junior Training Day, Woody learns the ropes the hard way, but his transformation from innocent to determined sharpshooter is faster than Anakin Skywalker’s.

The central performances are phenomenal, especially young Rainey Jr, who impresses in his  second feature role. He embodies the innocence of youth, complete with an accompanying naivety, which makes his transformation all the more heartbreaking. Rapper Common, continuing a string of strong performances off the back of TV’s Hell on Wheels, shows us his true calling on screen, not giving Woody an inch but hiding years of pain behind his character’s eyes. Charles S. Dutton and Danny Glover, as polar opposite mentors in Vincent’s life, both turn in admirable performances. Indeed, it would be tough to connect the Glover of the 1980s with the accomplished performances he has turned out recently.

Yet more than this, LUV is about not wanting to disappoint those that look up to you the most, but winding up doing so anyway. The film’s title stands for Learning Uncle Vincent, but could just as easily be Living Under Violence. In what is effectively a two-hander between father figure and son, co-writer/director Sheldon Candis has the occasional misstep and rushes the ending, but proves to be a strong new voice in cinema. Yet as we witness a man who wants to be there for Woody, but terrified of failing, Candis leaves us with a tragic and optimistic ending, one that doesn’t always reconcile with the film we’ve seen, but is fascinating to watch unfold.

LUV debuted at Sundance in January 2012, and Sundance London in April 2012. It does not currently have an Australian release date.

A few years ago, an advertisement was placed anonymously in the classified section of newspaper The Copenhagen Post, a weekly newspaper providing Danish news in English. The text became the stuff of Internet legend: “Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke…You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before”. Director Colin Trevorrow has taken this small paragraph and crafted it into a fictional narrative that defies the boundaries of time and space.

Darius (Aubrey Plaza) has found herself in something of a funk years after the premature death of her mother. Working as an abused intern at a newspaper, she is looking for anything to bring meaning to her life. When journalist Jeff (Jake M. Johnson) pitches the idea of chasing up the owner of the time travel classified ad, she quickly volunteers. Heading off to a small coastal town with Mark and fellow intern Arnau (Karan Soni), they quickly discover the identity of the potential temporal tourist. A local loner, Kenneth (Mark Duplass) is intense and potentially unhinged, but his openness and earnestness draws Darius in to his world. His reasons for wanting to go back are “classified”, but he slowly begins to trust Darius. Meanwhile, Mark’s intentions aren’t entirely editorial, using the opportunity to try and hook up with the “one that got away” from his youth.

Director Trevorrow, together with writer Derek Connolly, could have very easily mocked the character of Kenneth, rallying the audience around a more cynical style of comedy. Yet, like Lars and the Real Girl before it, the real charm of Safety Not Guaranteed is in its own sincerity. The question of whether Kenneth is for real is a mini-mystery right up until the very end, but there is very little questioning his own belief in the time travel project. Whether it is the product of madness or deep personal tragedy and loss, the audience is just as readily drawn into this complex world. In this sense, Trevorrow’s film draws its closest parallels with the fantasy films of the 1980s, especially Steven Spielberg’s Amblin productions. Unlike J.J. Abrams’ recent retro-awesome in Super 8, there are no children or aliens wrapped up in an adventure. There may or may not be a government conspiracy, but the fundamental parallel is in wanting to believe in the high concept against all rational evidence to the contrary. This is the real achievement of Safety Not Guaranteed, and there will be a few few moments where you may not be able to restrain an audible cheer or joy or jeer of sadness.

Trevorrow’s cast is largely peppered with a collection of actors best known for their work on the small screen. Duplass is magnificent as Kenneth, equal parts socially awkward and potentially creepy. He presents himself as the caricature at first, bailing up coworkers and customers at his retail job with stories of quantum mechanics. As Darius gets to know him, Duplass reveals a complex creation that sits underneath the obvious. AF doesn’t deviate significantly from her deadpan Parks and Recreation performances, here working it to get advantage to perhaps offset any audience incredulity at the core premise. Contrasting their buddy relationship is that of Mark and old flame Liz (Jenica Bergere), cleverly weaving a parallel narrative that demonstrates that sometimes you can’t go back. Newcomer YY is a delight, and hopefully to be seen in more productions. Safety Not Guaranteed is one of the most charming films of the year, and destined to be a cult classic. Safety may not be assured, but big sloppy grins are guaranteed. Weapons are optional.

Safety Not Guaranteed debuted at Sundance in January 2012, and Sundance London in April 2012. It does not currently have an Australian release date.

Ry Russo-Young‘s debut film, Orphans (2007) won a Special Jury Prize at South by Southwest upon its release, immediately grabbing audiences with her vision. Her sophomore effort, You Won’t Miss Me (2009), appeared at the Sundance Film Festival, and went on to win a Gotham Award for Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You. Her third film, co-written with Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture, HBO’s Girls), continues her exploration of the intimacies of human relationships in this often funny, and sometimes cold, dissection of the complexities of modern relationships.

23-year-old Martine (Olivia Thirlby) arrives in the hip hills of Los Angeles to stay in the poolhouse of sound designer Peter (John Krasinski) and his wife Julie (Rosemarie Dewitt). There to work on her short film about insects, her presence sparks something in all three parties that not only shatter the idyllic lives of the couple, but bring to light the thin veneer that everybody holds up on the pretense of civility in the big city.

Thirlby’s Martine is an ambiguous seductress, never overtly portrayed as a consciously disruptive force, but rather she brings with her the scent of sex. It is suggested that she is using her sexuality to her own advantage, but all she merely does is open the door. It is further implied that Peter and Julie had already allowed it to be left ajar, and it is their willingness and desire to be seen as an open-minded couple fostered this environment. Few other wives would willingly allow an attractive young girl into their house to be locked in a tiny soundproof room for days with their husband, after all. An interesting parallel is the young daughter Kolt (India Ennega of TV’s Treme), who independently manages to make her feelings of disgust clear to her slimy older Italian teacher Marcello (Emanuele Secci).

Rapidly becoming a genre of its own, thanks partly to the pseudo-mainstream success of the likes of Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and Somewhere, the slow-paced style of dramedy has carved out a niche as the artistic outlet of 20 and 30-something filmmakers, precariously perched inside an ironic voicelessness that comes from ubiquitous access to communication platforms. Like co-writer Dunham’s microcosmic view of New York’s Tribeca in Tiny Furniture, there is an element of parody to this portrait, but unlike that earlier work the writing duo have constructed a set of characters that are worth exploring. While this sometimes treads dangerously close to creating a void between he audience and the film, Russo-Young’s snapshot of a dysfunctional unit captures the reality of living in a big city.

Nobody Walks premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012, and screened again at the Sundance London Film Festival in April 2012. It has been picked up by Magnolia Pictures for US distribution.

We were lucky enough to be in the audience for the UK premiere of the film, which was followed by a Q & A with the writer/director. We got out our paper and pencil quickly, as she talked about the casting process. We also made a point about asking her about the process of working with Dunham.

Thematically, Russo-Young feels the movie doesn’t have any heroes or villains. “People sometimes do bad things meaning well, and I don’t feel I see that enough on screen. Things are very simplistic sometimes”. Much of the film is about the relationships between people in the isolating atmosphere of Los Angeles, as a young film student (Olivia Thirlby) comes to live with a married couple (John Krasinski and Rosemarie Dewitt), disrupting the delicate balance of their relationship.

Russo-Young spoke at length about the process of going through the Sundance Labs as “a really inspiring process”. The Sundance Labs are the heart of the festival, a workshop that aids young filmmakers develop their scripts with seasoned pros. She said that the workshop “helps you walk out of the Lab…thinking about your film in a deeper way”. She spoke about scenes that were added between Rosemarie Dewitt and the character of her daughter that came out of this process.

The film was only shot in 22 days with a budget that was “less than Titanic“, and it was very much part of a collaborative process. We asked about one of these collaborations, that with filmmaker Lena Dunham, who was friends with Russo-Young going into the film: “Collaborating with Lena felt really effortless, which is really great because it is not easy to write a movie. I attribute most of that to working with her…and her talents and skills. She takes what exists with…every human being, those natural emotions that we all have, and makes them her own and makes them very specific and beautiful”.

Nobody Walks is playing until 29 April 2012 at the Sundance London Film and Musical Festival.

Today’s announcement includes the winner of the US Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival Beasts of the Southern Wild, the winner of the FIPRESCI prize at Berlin Film Festival Tabu, the winner of the FIPRESCI prize at International Film Festival Rotterdam Neighbouring Sounds and the winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize Documentary at Sundance, The Law In These Parts.

There’s talks of Iranian filmmaker and SFF 2011 honouree Mohammad Rasoulof coming out for the festival already, for his film We are just intrigued by the zombie comedy Harold’s Going Stiff.

Feature Films

• Beasts of the Southern Wild – Dir: Benh Zeitlin (US)
• Tabu – Dir: Miguel Gomes (Portugal, Germany, Brazil, France)
• Neighbouring Sounds – Dir: Kleber Mendonça Filho (Brazil)
• The Loneliest Planet – Dir: Julia Loktev (US, Germany)
• Rampart – Dir: Oren Moverman (US)
• Once Upon a Time in Anatolia – Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey)
• Faust – Dir: Alexander Sokurov (Russia)
• Harold’s Going Stiff – Dir: Keith Wright (UK)
• A Simple Life – Dir: Ann Hui (Hong Kong)
• A Royal Affair – Dir: Nikolaj Arcel (Denmark, Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany)
• Goodbye – Dir: Mohammad Rasoulof (Iran)
• Barbara – Dir: Christian Petzold (Germany)
• Beauty – Dir: Oliver Hermanus (South Africa, France)
• Monsieur Lazhar – Dir: Philippe Falardeau (Canada)
• Some Guy Who Kills People – Dir: Jack Perez (US)

Documentary

• The Law In These Parts – Dir: Ra’anan Alexandrowicz (Israel)
• Woody Allen: A Documentary – Dir: Robert Weide (US)
• Crazy Horse – Dir: Frederick Wiseman (US/France)
• Under African Skies – Dir: Joe Berlinger (US)
• Maori Boy Genius – Dir: Pietra Brettkelly (New Zealand)
• Side By Side – Dir: Chris Kenneally (US)
• El Gusto – Dir: Safinez Bousbia (France, Algeria, Ireland, UAE)
• First Position – Dir: Bess Kargman (US)
• Golden Slumbers – Dir: Davy Chou (France/Cambodia)
• Searching for Sugarman – Dir: Malik Bendjelloul (Sweden/UK)

A full look at the films can be found on the official site.

Moodley replaced Clare Stewart, who served as the director for the last five years. Prior to that, he was Manager/Head of Programming of the Durban International Film Festival, South Africa’s longest-running film festival from 2001.

Moodley’s extensive experience includes the position of Director of Asia and Africa Programmes for the Dubai International Film Festival since 2005. In 2006, Moodley was responsible for curating the first South African Film Festival in Tehran. He has also been an adviser to several other festivals including South Korea’s Busan International Film Festival, which is rapidly emerging as one of the leading film festivals in the world.

We need to thank Cardinal Spin, Sydney Film Festival and, of course, Mr. Moodley for his generous time.

The Sydney Film Festival runs from 6 to 17 June 2012.

Congratulations on your appointment as the director of the Sydney Film Festival. What was it that attracted you to the Sydney Film Festival?

Thank you very much. Sydney Film Festival is one of the oldest public film festivals in the world and has such a rich history. Sydney is a great, cinema-loving city, so it made the prospect of directing the Sydney Film Festival extremely attractive.

How is the Sydney Film Festival distinct from the other festival roles that you’ve undertaken?

In some ways the diverse programme of Sydney Film Festival is very similar to the work I have done in Durban for instance, but I look forward to engaging with a much larger audience and of course to discovering the taste of the Sydney audience.

For the uninitiated, what does the daily job of an international film festival director consist of?

When at international festivals I typically watch 4-6 films a day, and take meetings with sales agents, national film promotion agencies, and filmmakers, and usually would attend a reception/party or two or three each night. Back at the office, I would have meetings with my colleagues to discuss various elements of the festival, send lots of emails to do with the invitation and negotiation around particular films, attend screenings, and meet with Australian distributors and the media. Typically, in the evening, I would watch 2 or 3 films on DVD for selection purposes.

Has the proliferation of festivals, small and large, around the world made programming more or less of a challenge?

It has made it more of a challenge. Festivals love to present premieres and with the proliferation of festivals, this has become more and more difficult. At the same time, the large number of festivals help promote a broader range of films and that’s a good thing.

What do you look for in a film to meet the standards of something like the Sydney Film Festival?

When creating a programme as large as that of Sydney Flm Festival it is important to ensure diversity and balance – there should be something for everyone. If a film says something important in an innovative and engaging way, I am usually partial to it.

What purpose do you want the Festival to have for filmmakers and filmgoers?

For filmmakers, we want to the Festival to represent a high-profile platform for the presentation of their films and opportunities to engage with their fellow filmmakers, the audience and the Australian industry. For our audience we want to create a welcoming festival with films that both satisfy and challenge, and with a fascinating group of visiting filmmakers to engage with.

What can we hope to see at the Sydney Film Festival this year that we’ve never seen before?

Well, you will see many new films that you haven’t seen before, and you will meet many new filmmakers who haven’t been to Australia before. We hope also to present the works of a number of first-time filmmakers – the masters of tomorrow. We are also introducing the new Sydney Film Festival Hub @ Lower Town Hall, a place for both filmmakers and the audience to hang out, featuring an action-packed line-up of live music, DJs, talks, panels, screenings, parties and loads of things to see and do from 5pm to 10pm, from 7 to 17 June.

As the Festival approaches its 60th anniversary next year, where do you hope the Festival will be by then?

I expect the festival to continue in the great trajectory of the past few years, with more and more recognition of the Official Competition, a greater number of international filmmakers attending the festival and, of course, larger audiences.