Sydney Film Festival's Back by Popular Demand

Overview

Sydney Film Festival takes over the city's cinemas for 12 days each year, but sometimes that's just not long enough to see all the films on your wishlist. Enter the festival's Back by Popular Demand bonus screenings, with 12 titles from the almost 300-strong lineup getting additional sessions at Dendy Newtown and Dendy Opera Quays between June 19 and 21.

This is the third year that SFF has gifted cinephiles with an extension of their program, helping movie buffs catch up on high-profile titles such as Sofia Coppola's Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning and Colin Farrell-starring western The Beguiled, Michael Haneke's unnerving family drama Happy End and Brokeback Mountain-like British rural romance God's Own Country. In addition, two of 2017's just-added straight-from-Cannes flicks will receive extra showings, which is welcome news to anyone unable to fit Palme d'Or winner The Square or Robert Pattinson getting gritty in Good Time into their regular SFF schedule.

The bonus lineup also includes popular documentaries I Am Not Your Negro, Citizen Jane: Battle for the City, The Go-Betweens: Right Here and The Last Goldfish, as well as international efforts The Ornithologist and The Teacher. As part of the festival's Akira Kurosawa retrospective, the Japanese master's Ran will also screen again.

Basically, if you thought you wouldn't be spending the days immediately after the official end of the fest sitting in a darkened room, you were wrong. "If you missed them at the festival, these screenings are a wonderful way to see some of the most talked-about films of the year," says SFF artistic director Nashen Moodley.

Sydney Film Festival's Back by Popular Demand bonus screenings hit Dendy Newtown and Dendy Opera Quays between June 19 and 21.