Clap Your Eyes On The Full Program For The 2017 Sydney Film Festival

Get out your day planners! The full program for the 2017 Sydney Film Festival is here, people, so that means it’s time to book up your evenings from June 7-18.

In addition to some of the big-ticket announcements made last month, the folk at SFF have revealed their opening-night film: We Don’t Need A Map, the new film from Samson and Delilah director (and Cannes Camera d’Or winner) Wawrick Thornton.

The film riffs of Thornton’s comment, during an interview when he was nominated for Australian of the Year, that a main concern with Aussie culture is: “that the Southern Cross is becoming the new Swastika”. We Don’t Need A Map is Thornton’s exploration of astronomical, colonial and Indigenous history, and includes interviews with tattooists, rappers, astronomers and even bush puppets!

The closing-night film is a real doozy: a new English-language offering from acclaimed Korean director Bong Joon-ho (auteur of the epic Snowpiercer), and his second collaboration with the inimitable Tilda Swinton, Okja.

This film sounds straight-up weird/amazing, and details the quest to save a super-pig, the titular Okja, from the clutches of a corporate megalomaniac (Swinton). Festival-goers are lucky to get a look-in at this intriguing action-thriller from Netflix, which also stars My Boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal and Paul Dano, before it’s Australia-wide release on June 28.

Even better? Joon-ho has just been announced as a festival guest for the closing-night event.

There’s also a searing debut film from Australian-born theatre director Benedict Andrews, Una, starring ya boi Ben Mendelsohn, Rooney Mara (i.e. the superior Mara) and the Internet’s Fiancé, Riz Ahmed.

Una follows a young woman’s confrontation of her abuser (Mendelsohn) 15 years after they ran away together when she was a teenager. It’s adapted from David Harrower’s Tony-award-winning play Blackbird, which made waves on Broadway due to its controversial subject matter. With a cast that killer, it’s worth booking Una fast before all the tickets are snapped up.

The documentary Sea Sorrow will also be worth a watch — the directorial debut for screen goddess Vanessa Redgrave. The film is a commentary on Europe’s refugee crisis that draws parallels to Shakespeare’s Tempest, which sounds mega chewy and worth watching.

There’s also a special screening of the first two episodes of Cleverman‘s highly anticipated second season. Cleverman will screen in two hour-long episodes at the festival, and in attendance will be directors Wayne Blair and Leah Purcell, as well as members of the cast. Honestly, I’d front up to this one just to clap eyes on the divine Rob Collins, but you can also be some of the first people in the country to see Australia’s hottest TV premiere.

There’s also the official Sydney Film Festival premiere of Ali’s Wedding, Australia’s first Muslim rom-com, based on Osamah Sami’s best-selling memoir, Good Muslim Boy; the highly anticipated Australian premiere of the documentary I’m Not Your Negro, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, which imagines an ending to James Baldwin’s iconic but unfinished work, Remember This House; and the Australian premiere of the hilarious-sounding Fun Mom Dinner, starring Toni Colette, Molly Shannon and the awesomely funny Bridget Everett.

Not enough for you? How about the definitive Whitney Huston documentary, Whitney ‘Can I Be Me’ (cue ‘I Will Always Love You’, which will be stuck in your head for the rest of today, you’re welcome).

Basically there’s a lot going down at the Sydney Film Festival this year, so put your hands on a full program list STAT and get booking!