Josephine

Australian Premiere – Bright Horizons Competition

After 8-year-old Josephine accidentally witnesses a crime in Golden Gate Park, she acts out in search of a way to regain control of her safety, while adults are helpless to console her.

Winner of both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Beth de Araújo’s JOSEPHINE is a tense, devastating, and transcendently empathetic portrait of a young girl wrestling with a newly discovered fear and anger she can neither escape nor fully comprehend. Anchored by a brilliantly tender performance from newcomer Mason Reeves, with stars Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan portraying her fiercely protective father and sensitive mom.

Introduction and Q&As from members of the filmmaking team at select screenings.

Boss Cat

BOSS CAT, directed by Genevieve Clay-Smith, is a heartwarming female-driven coming-of-age story about Sonja, a 23-year-old woman with Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). The first film from Bus Stop Films, produced in partnership with WeirAnderson Films, BOSS CAT celebrates empowerment and diversity, alongside self expression and freedom.

Introduction and Q&As from members of the filmmaking team at select screenings.

Jebediah: Are We OK?

World Premiere

This is the story of a band that grew up but never grew apart. Jebediah exploded onto the Australian music scene in the 1990s, becoming one of the country’s most beloved bands. Their thirty-year journey is a celebration of friendship, creativity, and staying connected against the odds.

A lot can happen over thirty years….

Introduction and Q&As from members of the filmmaking team at select screenings.

Yumburra

Yumburra is the name of Bruce Pascoe and his partner Lyn Harwood’s farm in south east Gippsland, situated on the banks of the Wallagaraugh River. The farm is the location of the Aboriginal social enterprise Black Duck Foods – a project designed to test, extend and materialise some of the ideas put forward in Pascoe’s book Dark Emu. It’s Pascoe’s attempt to bring to life a vision for growing traditional food on Country in a manner that benefits both the land and Aboriginal people.

The documentary YUMBURRA follows the seasons and activities on the farm guided by Pascoe’s gentle narration and personal stories for his grandchildren.

Introduction and Q&As from members of the filmmaking team at select screenings.

The Best Summer

Head backstage with the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters and more in this revelatory Sundance rockumentary, capturing the all the magic of the legendary 1995 Australian music festival Summersault.

Director Tamra Davis pieces together an electric time capsule of ’90s alternative music legends at the peak of their youthful powers, creating an infectiously fun tour diary. Featuring never-before-seen footage with candid, frequently hilarious interviews with the likes of Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Kim Deal, Beck, Dave Grohl and Kathleen Hanna, alongside raucous on-stage antics, it’s an all-access pass to a momentous moment in Australian music history.

Introduction and Q&As from members of the filmmaking team at select screenings.

Extra Geography

Australian Premiere

This funny, authentic coming-of-age story is an intimate snapshot of the challenges and joys of teenage girlhood. Flic and Minna are best friends and high achievers at a British girls’ boarding school. Their intimate friendship and universe are challenged when they decide to become more “worldly” and embark on their big summer project: to fall in love with the first person they see, who happens to be their geography teacher Miss Delavigne.

EXTRA GEOGRAPHY is a story of growing pains and teenage nostalgia that is as intimate as it is universal. The film takes women back to that formative best friend and the magical time of life when anything seemed possible.

Introduction and Q&As from members of the filmmaking team at select screenings.

The Story of Documentary Film

Australian Premiere

From Mark Cousins, creator of the groundbreaking The Story of Film and Women Make Film, comes the definitive history of documentary, presented in its entirety across three sessions at the festival.

Tracing the evolution of documentary film across time, encompassing landmark works and hidden treasures, while revealing how the form has helped us see and make sense of our world. Spanning the dawn of cinema to the present day, THE STORY OF DOCUMENTARY FILM offers a rich history – told in a fresh and dynamic way.

The Oligarch and The Art Dealer

Australian Premiere

Spanning over two decades, multiple countries, and dozens of the world’s greatest art masterpieces, THE OLIGARCH AND THE ART DEALER is a thrilling exploration of one of the most sensational and mysterious events to ever hit the art world: the bitter fight between Yves Bouvier and Dmitry Rybolovlev that followed accusations of a billion-dollar swindle.

Fatherland

The new film from Academy Award® nominated filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski, the director of Ida and Cold War.

FATHERLAND centres on the relationship between the Nobel Prize® winning writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Oscar® nominee Sandra Hüller) – actress, writer and rally driver. Set at the height of the Cold War, father and daughter embark on a challenging and emotional road trip in a black Buick taking them across a Germany in ruins – from U.S. dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar.

Jim Queen

Hilarious, bold, and irreverent JIM QUEEN is a wild ride through identity, image, and the absurd lengths we’ll go to stay seen — and stay queer.

In the heart of Paris’s gay scene, Jim reigns supreme: the ultimate Gym Queen, influencer, and object of universal thirst. But when a bizarre virus called Heterosis starts turning gay men straight, his reign ends overnight. Unfollowed, abandoned, and stripped of status, Jim is left with just one unlikely ally: Lucien, a devoted scrawny twink with more loyalty than clout. Together, they plunge into the queer chaos of the Marais, chasing a rogue doctor rumored to have a cure.

Dead Man's Wire

For years Academy Award® nominee Gus Van Sant has used cinema as a means of mirroring American life in all its extremes and complexities. Graced with captivating performances from Dacre Montgomery, Bill Skarsgård, Oscar® nominee Colman Domingo, and Oscar® winner Al Pacino, DEAD MAN’S WIRE finds Van Sant returning to that based-on-real-events mode with the fascinating true story of the 1977 kidnapping that made aspiring Indianapolis entrepreneur Tony Kiritsis into an eccentric outlaw folk hero.

Sheep in the Box

In the near future, Otone and her husband, Kensuke, turn to a company that resurrects the deceased through AI generated robotics. They welcome a state-of-the-art humanoid into their home and try to rebuild their family.

Set against a modern science fiction backdrop and exploring familiar themes of family, humanity and belonging, SHEEP IN THE BOX is the new Palme d’Or nominated film from acclaimed filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda.

American Doctor

Poh Si Teng’s riveting award-winning documentary is a vital and necessary watch for the current times we find ourselves living in.

When three American doctors—Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian—enter Gaza to save lives, they find themselves caught between medicine and politics, risking everything to expose the truth.

Whispers in the Woods

Delving deep into the woodland realms, where lynxes, bears, deer, owls, and other river creatures roam, acclaimed filmmaker Vincent Munier (director of The Velvet Queen) not only seeks to pay tribute once again to the visual splendor of nature but also to capture the forest’s poetic sounds.

A box office sensation in France, WHISPERS IN THE WOODS won Best Documentary and Best Sound at France’s top film awards, the César Awards, and features music by legendary award-winning Australian musician Warren Ellis.

Hen

Escaping from a chicken farm, a hen finds refuge in the courtyard of a crumbling restaurant. There, she discovers love, confronts the pecking order, and fights to protect her eggs from a greedy owner.

“With great power comes great responsibility” — but what if the hero is just a hen?

Closure

CLOSURE is an immersive and visceral new documentary from award-winning filmmaker Michael Marczak that defies the perceptions of the true-crime genre.

After his teenage son goes missing, Daniel scours the depths of the Vistula River, torn between the dread of a fatal leap and the hope that his son may still be alive.

On The Road

A rebellious drifter hitches a ride with a lone trucker. As their intimacy deepens on the road, ghosts of the past catch up with them at each truck stop —and danger closes in.

Winner of the Queer Lion at the Venice Film Festival, ON THE ROAD is a racy, turbo-charged thriller about burgeoning love.

The Tale of Silyan

Nikola, a farmer grappling with the harsh realities of new government policies, finds himself unable to sell his land or crops. When his family leaves in search of a better life abroad, Nikola takes a job as a landfill attendant, where he encounters the injured white stork Silyan. As he nurses the bird back to health, an unlikely bond forms between man and animal.

From the Oscar® nominated director of Honeyland comes a deeply moving film that touches on climate change, economic migration, resilience and the quiet power of connection.

To Hold A Mountain

In the remote highlands of Montenegro’s Sinjajevina plateau, Gara and her 13-year-old daughter Nada return to their ancestral pastures every summer, where they herd animals, gather herbs and live in symbiosis with the mountain they call “Mother.” But their fragile world comes under threat when the Montenegrin government advances plans for a NATO-backed military training ground in the heart of this protected landscape.

TO HOLD A MOUNTAIN is an immersive and down-to-earth portrayal of a woman and her daughter standing in quiet opposition to the violence and power of the world. The winner of the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it’s a tender portrait of female resistance.