Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. As the winter chill descends, the 71st Sydney Film Festival promises 12 days of entertaining, stimulating and thought-provoking cinema from around the world. There are well-known actors dotted around the program, including Viggo Mortensen as a new American settler in The Dead Don’t Hurt , Guy Pearce as a preacher in the New Zealand drama The Convert , Saoirse Ronan as a recovering addict in The Outrun , the late Christopher Reeve in the documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story and Aubrey Plaza as a young woman’s future self in My Old Ass .
But the real pleasures of the festival, which runs from June 5 to 16, are traditionally the line-up of new Australian feature films and documentaries, as well as unexpected gems from around the world. Alphabetically, the program runs from Algeria to Vietnam this year. The State Theatre is the focal point for the festival’s competition for “audacious, cutting-edge and courageous” films, with nine other cinemas around the city screening movies including the new theatre at the State Library of NSW and the IMAX in Darling Harbour.
Here are 15 highlights. Documentary Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line explores the band’s politics and passions. Credit: Daniel Boud/Sydney Film Festival After creating and producing the likes of Spicks and Specks , Long Way to the Top and Bombora: The History of Australian Surfing , Paul Clarke has directed a feature documentary on one.