Ghosts, Zucchini And Whitney Houston: Here’s Your First Look At The 2017 Sydney Film Festival
Start making room in your calendar.
The cineastes at the Sydney Film Festival have revealed 28 first look titles from this year’s jam-packed program, including the award winning feature debut by one of Afghanistan’s first female directors, an Oscar-nominated stop motion animation featuring the voices of Nick Offerman and Ellen Page, and a highly anticipated documentary about the life and career of Whitney Houston.
Directed by veteran documentarian Nick Broomfield, Whitney: Can I Be Me combines candid interviews and backstage footage to paint a portrait of the beloved recording artist, who passed away in 2012. Broomfield will be in Sydney as a guest of the festival, and will present a masterclass on documentary filmmaking.
Other docos on the docket include the Oscar-nominated I Am Not Your Negro, about the history of the civil rights movement, Rumble: Indians Who Rocked the World, about the role of Native American musicians in the development of American popular music, and Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, a socially conscious effort about the financial crisis from Hoop Dreams director Steve James.
The programmers have also secured a number of prominent features. Nick Offerman, Will Forte and Ellen Page lend their voices to the English dub of the Swiss/French animation My Life as a Zucchini, about a young orphan named after a vegetable. There’s also David Lowery’s fittingly named ghost story, A Ghost Story, starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, and Wolf and Sheep, a slice of life drama from 26-year-old Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat.
As always, the festival will place a strong focus on Australian cinema. That’s Not Me is a comedy-drama about an aspiring actress living in the shadow of her much more successful twin sister, while Mountain is the new high-altitude doco from Sherpa director Jennifer Peedom.
SFF has also announced a brand new venue for this year’s festival, in Randwick’s historic Ritz Cinema. Returning venues include The State Theatre, Event Cinemas George Street, Dendy Opera Quays, Dendy Newtown, the Art Gallery of NSW, the Hayden Orpheum, Casula Powerhouse and Blacktown’s Skyline Drive In.
This year’s Sydney Film Festival runs from June 7-18, while the full program will be announced on May 10. For the complete list of first look titles, go here.