60th Festival 2013

Sydney Film Festival celebrated its 60th edition in 2013. Screening 192 films over 12 days and nights, the festival was a great box-office success – new records for both sales and attendance were set.

The festival expanded to the North Shore, holding screenings at the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace Cremorne for the first time in over 40 years. (For a few years before the State Theatre era began in 1974, the festival was divided between the Cremorne Orpheum and the Wintergarden in Rose Bay.)

This publication was launched in March to celebrate the anniversary. Among the events during the festival itself that marked the milestone were a forum bringing together onstage four former Festival Directors – David Stratton, Rod Webb, Gayle Lake and Lynden Barber – along with current Director Nashen Moodley and Programs Manager Jenny Neighbour. There was also a free screening of The Back of Beyond, the classic Australian documentary that was part of the festival’s first program. The festival also screened Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Rear Window, which was released in 1954, the same year SFF commenced.

The festival announced a new partnership entitled Screen: Black with Screen Australia’s Indigenous Department. Among the work by Indigenous filmmakers supported by the program were the Opening Night film, Ivan Sen’s Mystery Road; and Dylan McDonald’s Buckskin, the winner of the Foxtel Australian Documentary Prize.

The Festival Hub at Lower Town Hall returned for a second year; the Meet the Filmmakers talks at the Apple Store continued, as did SFFTV at Martin Place. This was the last year of construction in the State Theatre, which caused some daytime sessions to be screened in Event Cinemas.

The Official Competition was another particularly strong one. For the first time ever two documentaries screened in Competition – Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing, which was highly praised by festival audiences and marked by intense post-screening discussions; and Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell. There were also five debut features in Competition – including The Rocket, the Australian-made, Laos-set coming-of-age tale, the winner of the Audience Award for Best Feature; and Wadjda, directed by University of Sydney graduate Haifaa Al Mansour, Saudi Arabia’s first female filmmaker. It was also the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and the first film from that nation to screen at SFF.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives won the Sydney Film Prize. The jury, headed by Hugo Weaving (who also co-starred in Mystery Road) was split, debating the winner for a record six and a half hours. Likewise the film polarised audiences and critics, with some feeling that the violent thriller was undeserving. Others defended the film’s unorthodox style and vision. It was Winding Refn’s second Sydney Film Prize, after 2009’s Bronson.

Australian titles swept the Foxtel Movies Audience Awards, with The Rocket winning Best Narrative Feature and The Crossing taking Best Documentary.

Retrospectives included 13 cult classic mid-century British crime thrillers in Brit Noir: Rainy Sundays and Stormy Mondays; screenings of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) before the Australian premiere of Before Midnight; and a restored version of Wrong Side of the Road, the 1981 classic about indigenous bands on tour, which brought together members of the cast and crew, some of them for the first time since the film’s original release.

Other than Saudi Arabia, the festival also screened for the first time films from Malawi, North Korea, Angola and Bangladesh. In all 55 countries were represented. There were 20 world premieres and 124 Australian premieres.