A Guide to the Best Picks of Sydney’s Film Festival Season

March is the ultimate movie marathon. With the end of summer (or whatever that thing that wrapped up in February was), festival organisers want to cater to our common desire to seek entertainment indoors. So much so that there are nine full film festivals on within these short few weeks.

For those bemused by the acres of programme, take the Concrete Playground-approved shortcut. From black-and-white classics to technicolour gorefests, these are our picks of the top nine films to catch across all nine events.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yTX3RlwOdbo

1. Bardelys the Magnificent

March 13, 7.30pm, Govinda's, $14.90 at the Silent Film Festival

Govinda's is fanning the fires of film nostalgia lit by The Artist with its season of silent movies on Tuesday and Sundays. A highlight is certainly this lush classic of adventure and romance, recently restored from a print unearthed in France.

For a movie double: Comedy! The era is known for its slapstick, but The Italian Straw Hat is said to bring some elegance to proceedings (presumably with said hat).

2. LBF (aka Living Between F**ks)

March 14, 7pm, Randwick Ritz, $13 at the Australian Film Festival

Based on the cult novel by Cry Bloxsome, starring Toby Schmitz and Gracie Otto and backed up by a soundtrack of impeccable Australian indie, LBF is destined to be an underground hit. It follows a twenty-something writer who, returning to Australia for his ex-girlfriend's funeral, quickly goes off the rails.

For a movie double: The festival closes with Redd Inc, a cross between The Apprentice and Saw that might provide a gruesome catharsis for office workers.

3. Delicacy (La Delicatesse)

Until March 25, selected cinemas at Alliance Francaise French Film Festival (March 6-25)

Movies like this one are why the French Film Festival attracts sell-out crowds around the country. We're all looking for Amelie Deux, and this gorgeous film, starring Audrey Tautou and following the fate of a grieving widow who unexpectedly kisses a (genetically not so blessed) coworker, might be it.

For a movie double: Actor/singer/ultimate adoptive Frenchwoman Jane Birkin herself will be taking questions following a screening of her intimate doco about her life with Serge Gainsbourg, Souvenirs of Serge.

4. Scarlet Road

March 15, 7pm, Red Rattler at Seen and Heard (March 15-29)

You may have seen Touching Base at Mardi Gras. The charitable organisation is dedicated to disability and sex, and this documentary follows Rachel Wotton, one of the project's founders.

For a movie double: watch the pharmaceutical industry race to invent Viagra for women in Orgasm Inc.

5. Those Tricky Women: Australian and International Shorts

March 16, 7pm, UTS, $10/7 at WOW Film Festival (March 6-16)

See Lucinda Schreiber's work for Gotye alongside other animations ranging from the twee to the grotesque. We love the look of The Cartographer from Jane Shadbolt.

For a movie double: The night before, WOW will be taking over Surry Hills' Late Night Library with more Australian and international shorts.

6. Another Earth

March 22, 9.20pm, Dendy Newtown at Fantastic Planet (March 22-April 1)

This introspective indie film, with its focus on a new planet in the sky and its melancholic feel, is reminiscent of, well, Melancholia. Which we loved, so...

For a movie double: Find balance with Another Earth's polar opposite, Unicorn City, which is full of roleplaying in-jokes and Python-esque humour.

7. The Whisperer in Darkness

March 24, 5pm, Dendy Newtown at A Night of Horror

With the current old-Hollywood love-in going on courtesy of The Artist and Hugo, this HP Lovecraft tale of terror — filmed in black-and-white, crackly 'Mythoscope' by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society — will be a hit.

For a movie double: steel your stomach for the perverse, richly visual odyssey ofThe Theatre Bizarre.

8. Le Havre

March 24, 10am, Dendy Opera Quays at Young at Heart (March 22-25)

Sydney's seniors film festival is packed with those heartwarming indies to which we'd gladly take our grandmas. Le Havre, about an elderly gent in a Normandy fishing village who winds up harbouring a young African refugee, is currently on 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

For a movie double: See what Maggie Smith was like in 1972 (hint: still awesome) in Travels with My Aunt, set aboard the Orient Express.

9. The Russians Are Coming

March 31, 2pm, Sydney Opera House, free at Message Sticks (March 27-April 1)

Some stories are just worth sharing. This one tells of a refreshingly uncolonial encounter that occurred when, for 10 days in 1820, a group of wayward Russian sailors and local Maoris became mates.

For a movie double: You can't go past Toomelah, the story of mission life that made the grade at Cannes.