Feeling 22

Overview

When Sydney Film Festival rolls around each year, screening impressive movies from all around the world isn't the only highlight. The fest has to play those flicks somewhere, so it settles into a heap of picture palaces around the city, giving attendees a tour of the town's best movie-watching spots. One such place: the Art Gallery of NSW's cinema, which has been showing films for 22 years now. And, when SFF is over for 2022, the picture-going spot will relaunch its huge (and free) weekly movie program.

To celebrate the 340-seat theatre's birthday, AGNSW is also focusing on flicks that've released since its projectors first starting whirring, with more than 30 set to show between Wednesday, June 22–Sunday, October 16. Each year during that period is catered for, sometimes with one title, sometimes with more. As usual, you'll be seeing them on Wednesdays and Sundays, and you won't be paying a thing to do so.

Called Feeling 22, for obvious reasons, the program reads like a must-see snapshot of the millennium-era cinema — starting with Wong Kar-wai's gorgeous and glorious In the Mood for Love. Proceeding in chronological order, it also includes Bong Joon-ho's wonderful Barking Dogs Never Bite from 2000, then hops through everything from David Lynch's Mulholland Drive and Lynne Ramsay's Morven Callar to Jordan Peele's Get Out and Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Also showing: Michael Haneke's Caché, Pedro Almodóvar's Volver, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret, Leos Carax's Holy Motors and Hong Sang-soo's Yourself and Yours. Or, get excited about big-screen sessions of Aussie gems Lake Mungo, Mad Max: Fury Road and Sweet Country, as well as Soda Jerk's phenomenal Terror Nullius — and an afternoon in praise of the late David Gulpilil, including Crocodile Dreaming and Ten Canoes.

Yes, it's basically a who's who list of the very best filmmakers of the past 22 years, and their career standouts. Yes, the list goes on.

The season will wrap up a mystery movie, if you're wondering how 2022 will be represented.