The Ten Best Things to See at the Sydney Film Festival

A Sydney Film Festival top ten? From more than 200 films and events? Yeah, that's going to happen. We may have snuck a few extras in there. But with a fierce competition field, an extended Sydney Film Festival Hub program and special presentations of some of the most talked-about new films we thought we'd have to wait much longer to see, you'll want to know you had this vital extended information when heading over to book seats.

1. Rear Window Loop

This impressive video installation, spliced together by Jeff Desom, allows you to see the world as it appeared to Jimmy Stewart's paranoid, wheelchair-bound photojournalist Jeff in Hitchcock's Rear Window — possible murders and all. It will be set up at the SFF Hub in the Lower Town Hall, a site so integral to the feel of the festival, it's hard to believe that it is only in its second year. The Hub is the spot to hang out, imbibe and celebrate the way films bleed into life and art, via a program of cinema-related happenings, interdisciplinary works and playtime.

And also: Nearly everything here is good; just go already. But, seeing as I'm literally being paid to choose: This Is It, a staged movie press conference where you can ask questions; the nostalgic VHS Party, to which you can bring your own cued tapes; and the Download This Show panel discussion Cinema in 2074, in which Marc Fennell and co discuss what the tech and culture might look like 60.5 years from now. This is also the place to buy last-minute $10 tickets.

2. Before Midnight

There's something really special about Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, the conversational, anti-narrative, true-to-life romcom which is partly responsible for the mumblecore movement. With the sequel Before Sunset coming nine years later and this third installment nine years later still, the movie release has become an event. We care about Ethan Hawke's Jessie and Julie Delpy's Celine the way we care about TV characters that we've spent seasons with, and it's a joy to think about visiting them as middle-agey marrieds.

And also: New films from other cult writer/directors are also previewing at the festival. Don't miss Mood Indigo, the newbie from the finest mind in whimsy, Michel Gondry, and the alluring stumper Upstream Color, Shane Carruth's follow-up to Primer.

3. The Rocket

Directed by Kim Mordaunt, this Australian film set in Laos comes to the festival with a lot of momentum at its back, having just won Best First Feature at the Berlinale and Best Narrative Feature at Tribeca. The wins are probably because it's so sweet and heartwarming, even while following a ten-year-old boy hurt both by displacement and by having everyone in his village ostracise him for being 'cursed'.

And also: Australian filmmakers constantly prove their mettle amidst the international heat of the Sydney Film Festival. Opening the festival is the world premiere of Mystery Road, Ivan Sen's Western-tinged follow-up to Toomelah.

4. The Act of Killing

This is one of those documentaries that in its very form is something new. While filming survivors of the 1965-66 Sumatran massacre, Joshua Oppenheimer discovered that the perpetrators, now elder statesmen, remain openly proud of their crimes — and eager for fame. So he has them join the project, scripting and starring in re-enactments of their murders. It's chilling but also achieves a surprising effect, leading Werner Herzog to say "I have not seen a film as powerful, surreal, and frightening in at least a decade...it is unprecedented in the history of cinema." He signed on to executive produce, along with documentary king Errol Morris.

And also: Documentaries are a huge strength of the festival. There's the surprising reveals of Stories We Tell, Sarah Polley's revealing investigation of her own family; the call to action of urban planning manifesto The Human Scale; and the constant bizarreness of Fuck for Forest, which spends time with the enviro group that fundraises by selling homemade porn.

5. Stoker

Stoker will be out in cinemas in August, but it's already generating so much buzz from overseas — based on it being the first English-language film from ruthless Korean director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) and on the awesome Aus-lady casting triumvirate of Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Jacki Weaver — why wait to join in the conversation when you don't have to? The Stokers bear a resemblance to the Addams family, with added violence, psychosexual exploration and Hitchcockian suspense. Hooray!

And also: You can say it; there's a petty but good feeling that comes from seeing something just a bit earlier than everybody else. Other majorly hyped releases previewing at SFF time include The Bling Ring (the one where Emma Watson sticks her tongue out), Behind the Candelabra (the one where Michael Douglas and Matt Damon are lovers) and Only God Forgives (the Nicholas Winding Refn/Ryan Gosling reunion we're only more excited to see now it's been booed at Cannes).

6. Frances Ha

Like a Woody Allen comedy, with Greta Gerwig as Woody Allen. She wrote this script together with director (and love friend) Noah Baumbach (Greenberg). Even if you really, really can't stand films/TV/books about self-involved, twenty-something-year-old white people trying to figure their lives out, this one looks poised to charm.

And also: It's so easy to make it to the end of SFF without seeing a comedy; they're often dismissed around more 'worthy' films. Another favourite is The Way, Way Back the latest from Descendents writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (Community's Dean!), with Andrew Bujalski's mockumentary Computer Chess striking a more offbeat note.

7. Wadjda

Joining The Rocket in competition is Wadjda, the first film shot entirely in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, by a University of Sydney grad no less: Haifaa Al Mansour. It's a sweetly challenging number, about a 10-year-old girl who'll do anything for a bicycle — including train to win a Koran recitation competition.

And also: Don't be that person who stays in their Hollywood-cinema comfort zone, at least not at festival time. Asghar Faradi follows up The Separation with The Past, fellow Iranian Jafar Panahi follows up This Is Not a Film with closed curtain, and Berlin's hipsters get a moment in the sun in Oh Boy.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4QzblZ-Dg0U

8. Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer

One thing we never regret doing, when we get the chance, is revisiting a story that dominated headlines a year or so prior. Context, analysis, consequence, meaning — all these new things to appreciate. You know you want to in the case of Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, a new doco from Academy Award-nominated producer Mike Lerner (Afghan Star) that's soon to screen on HBO, too.

And also: SFF has a Sounds on Screen stream, but it could just as easily have a 'women and girls smashing it' stream. That's where we'd place Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls, teen dream Ginger and Rosa and the burlesque boundary-pushers of Exposed all demand attention.

9. Comrade Kim Goes Flying

This is not a film you'd expect to see, anywhere. It's actually the first North Korean-Western co-pro in more than 30 years. And the film itself is a kitschy comedy about a young coal miner pursuing her dreams in the circus arts. Go figure.

And also: A great film festival experience features at least one film that's truly bizarre (and probably too bizarre to make it into cinemas later down the track). Some of this year's loveable oddballs include The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, in which Slavoj Zizek talks at you from replica film sets (it's a sequel to The Pervert's Guide to Cinema), and Love City Jalalabad, in which filmmaker George Gittoes starts a surreal artist commune in Afghanistan.

10. Burning Bush

TV is going through a golden age that sees movie stars and directors flocking to the medium. The Sydney Film Festival recognises this through their Box Set program, which screens quality TV series (mini ones, not eight-series-long ones) that mightn't be on your radar yet. Check out HBO Europe's Burning Bush, which revisits a pivotal moment in Czech history, triggered by a student's act of self-immolation. It screens in one 240-minute marathon with a 20-minute interval.

And also: There's Japanese broadcaster WOWOW's Penance, a vengeance tale from Kiyoshi Kurosawa (270 minutes).

The Sydney Film Festival runs from Wednesday, June 5, to Sunday, June 16.

Top image: Upstream Color