Now that the 63rd Sydney Film Festival has drawn to a close, we look back at the festival as a whole.
Official Competition
The winner of the 2016 Sydney Film Prize was Aquarius, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho. You can read our review of that film here.
| Title | No. Staff Seen | High Rec. | Rec. | Not Rec. | S. Not Rec. |
| Certain Women | 10 | 2 | 8 | – | – |
| Aquarius | 10 | – | 10 | – | – |
| Goldstone | 8 | – | 5 | 3 | – |
| It’s Only the End of the World | 9 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| Land of Mine | 3 | – | – | 2 | 1 |
| Letters From War | 4 | – | 2 | 2 | – |
| The Childhood of a Leader | 6 | 1 | 5 | – | – |
| The Endless River | 1 | – | – | 1 | – |
| Apprentice | 3 | – | 1 | 2 | – |
| Viva | 1 | – | 1 | – | – |
| Notes on Blindness | 2 | 1 | 1 | – | – |
| Psycho Raman (Raman Raghav 2.0) | 2 | 1 | – | 1 | – |
Awards
Since the viewing of our writers was so varied, we’re unable to provide singular picks for all of the best elements of the festival, due to a lack of consensus. As a result, we have asked writers to propose films worthy of these awards, and have included them here. Note: awards listed “consensus” require 2 or more writers to have seen and rated the film.
Consensus – Best Film of the Official Competition: Certain Women, dir. Kelly Reichardt – USA
“Certain Women is far less interested in developing overarching ideas than it is in depicting the smaller moments of failed understanding or missed connection between individuals. In this respect, it is not dissimilar to another film in competition at the festival – Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only the End of the World. And yet these two filmmakers could not approach said moments more differently; whereas Dolan works in the mode of extreme melodrama, often using swelling music and slow motion to convey moments of heightened emotion, Reichardt prefers to work with silence and duration to achieve a much quieter intensity of feeling.” – Review by Megan Nash
Consensus – Features That Deserved a Competition Berth:
Chevalier, dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari – GREECE
“Chevalier has a cast consisting exclusively of men, although the presence of Tsangari as both director and co-writer is starkly evident from the opening scene. Working with a talented ensemble, Tsangari paints a detailed caricature of Greek masculinity; beginning with an absurd competition set on a yacht, in which men compete to see who among them is “the best in general”, Tsangari and co-writer Efthymis Filippou (Dogtooth, The Lobster) slowly blur their defining characteristics together until we’re left with a display of primal desire.” – Review by Jeremy Elphick
Death in Sarajevo, dir. Danis Tanović – FRANCE/BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
“Danis Tanović’s Death in Sarajevo adapts Henri-Levy’s play in a well-established, albeit frantic reflection on the intersecting historical tensions that have defined the identity of the titular city. Although the entire film contained within the single location of a struggling hotel in Sarajevo, Tanović’s characters and their interactions with their setting and one another are layered and diverse. Their relationship with the crises of the previous century are framed in a complexity in their distinctions from one another.” – Review by Jeremy Elphick
Thithi, dir. Raam Reddy – INDIA/USA
“The allegory isn’t harped on for dramatic effect, but rather, it develops in the background slowly and gradually, until all the pieces fit together. Meanwhile, Reddy is able to get the best from his cast of non-professional actors, which is no small feat. All the cast members commit to their characters and have a keen sense of camera awareness. For a film that relies so heavily on situational absurdity, all the performers have a unique command over timing of their dialogue delivery. This is quite a difficult craft that even seasoned actors struggle to get right. However, these performers make it look effortless. It would be unfair to single out a performance, as it really is the collective commitment by the performers to their characters, big or small, that makes the film work.” – Review by Virat Nehru
Consensus – Best of the Rest:
Toni Erdmann, dir. Maren Ade – GERMANY/AUSTRIA
“On paper, it’s difficult to conceive how the premise of Toni Erdmann will support its considerable 162-minute runtime. “Practical joker Winfried loves to annoy his daughter with corny pranks” may not sound like the basis for one of the most sensitive, precise and confidently directed films of recent times. That’s exactly what makes Toni Erdmann so miraculous, finding stable footing in the face of extreme precariousness. With just a slight overstep, it could have descended into farce, but the deft handling of director Maren Ade simply does not allow it.” – Review by Jessica Ellicott
Everybody Wants Some!!, dir. Richard Linklater – USA
“Everybody Wants Some!! isn’t about college baseball, but in between the series of exquisitely realised moments that we’re offered there’s a generous, congenial study on the thrill of youth; how taken for granted that thrill is when we’re in the midst of it, and how glossed-over and romantic it all seems in retrospect. This is a riot of a movie, drenched in sunny naivete and paced at an open, lackadaisical beat; a pipe dream set back in the past—a pipe memory, perhaps—that ends without the resolution of conflict (because there isn’t any) and instead in the promise of endless fun.” – Review by Jaymes Durante
Paterson, dir. Jim Jarmusch – USA
“It’s hard to fault a film so generous of spirit, in which stillness is prized over narrative incident and the simple act of observing speaks volumes more than drama or obvious characterisation. It’s the kind of film in which a bulldog, through virtue of the camera’s embrace, is afforded as much interior dimension as its human counterparts; where the texture of a notebook or the clippings on a wall are of equal interest to the overall aesthetic design.” – Review by Luke Goodsell
Consensus – Best Documentaries of the Festival:
No Home Movie, dir. Chantal Akerman – BELGIUM/FRANCE
“[No Home Movie‘s] prosaic digital images seem almost utilitarian at times, preserving precious moments with a pragmatic straightforwardness. One gets the impression that at least part of what drives the film is this elemental impulse to preserve that has been pervasive throughout Akerman’s career; a will to preserve lived duration and the rituals that create little quotidian parcels of time.” – Review by Ivan Čerečina
In Jackson Heights, dir. Frederick Wiseman – USA
“Wiseman insists that the omnipresence of his camera and small crew of three (he records sound alongside cinematographer John Davey and an assistant) doesn’t modify the behaviour of his subjects, but his style, seemingly imperceptible, is one that so many documentarians attempt but so few are able to actually procure. He catches his subjects in a state of droopy relaxation, unmade for camera and not performative in the slightest. They’re open and unselfconscious, merely behaving. Add to this already delicate concoction Wiseman’s reticence to impose narrative structure on this freewheeling docu-poem and you have a film liberated from the constraints of central conflict and personality exhibitionism that have become so modish in documentary filmmaking of late.” – Review by Jaymes Durante
Best Freak Me Out Feature: Evolution, dir. Lucile Hadžihalilovic – FRANCE/BELGIUM/SPAIN
“Richard Kuipers’ time-honoured sidebar typically plays host to violent and bawdy fare from the horror genre, but Evolution proves a wild exception. Over the course of an abstract narrative where a boy falls deeper into the clutches of his nurse-like caretakers, Hadžihalilovic drifts from crystalline ocean shallows to pitch-black rock crags and steel laboratories, with flesh and blood being the squirming foreigner in all. The fear she fashions isn’t something that jumps out of the dark, but wafts slowly into view in a world where nothing—human bodies least of all—can be taken for granted. It’s simultaneously a calming and dread-inducing experience, delivered by a director in complete control of her tone and vision.” – Dominic Barlow
Best Korean Sidebar Film: Alice in Earnestland, dir. Ahn Gooc-jin – SOUTH KOREA
“Alice in Earnestland is one of few films billed as a ‘black comedy’ that live up to their promise. It’s a hilarious film, provided one has a keen sense for the absurd. Its depiction of Soo-nam’s relationship with her husband, Gyu-jung (Lee Hae-young) is heartbreaking and touching—he feels the pressure of wanting to provide for her and be useful, despite being disabled by a workplace injury, and she feels the pressure of wanting to make her husband happy. Yet, the depiction of their relationship is so wrought that their plight is rendered as delightfully amusing.” – Review by Isobel Yeap
Best Acting Performances:
Nawazuddin Sidiqqui, Psycho Raman: Raman Raghav 2.0
“Nawazuddin Siddiqui, since his breakout performance in Gangs of Wasseypur, has gone from strength to strength and has established himself as one of the most versatile actors in Hindi cinema today. As the serial killer Ramanna, Siddiqui is in top form. He manages to elevate each frame he’s in, infusing the character with the right balance of menace, pathological sensibility and an overall sociopathic oeuvre. It’s a delicate balance to strike, but Siddiqui manages it effortlessly.” – Review by Virat Nehru
Sonia Braga, Aquarius
“[The film] bursts with small moments of memory and mystery, while still telling a moving story of love, labour, and loss, mainly thanks to a considered and committed performance by Braga. […] Early sequences establishing her status as a popular local figure, her daily routine of visits to the beach, and her ongoing relationships with her peers and family, are presented in crisp, bright clarity, with Braga able to play her character as wilful without being august, and as exuberant without becoming a cliché of the well-off older widow.” – Review by Jake Moody
Lily Gladstone, Certain Women
“Lily Gladstone, too, more than holds her own among the more experienced actors – she has an expressive face that proves highly affective in front of Reichardt’s lingering camera.” – Review by Megan Nash
Lilith Stangenberg, Wild
“Some viewers will be repulsed by the physical nature of Ania’s transition (the instances when she begins to share in the wolf’s feeding habits will surely turn some stomachs), but the success of most of these moments, and the fact that they often serve a greater purpose than merely that of shock, has a lot to do with the indomitable Lilith Stangenberg. She inhabits the strangeness of Ania brilliantly, and seems to revel in the physicality of this highly unconventional role.” – Review by Megan Nash
Best Cinematography:
Ivan Sen, Goldstone
“The film’s broader themes [are] writ large in Sen’s cinematography. The ominous presence of capitalism clashing with the beauty and spirituality of the outback is particularly impressive; lurking in the corners of every frame. Connected is the pervasive sense of surveillance – twice Jay finds himself looking into a security camera, and in the wide open, expansive outback other characters seem to always be tracking his every mood; and Sen’s favoured birds-eye drone shots echoes this while contextualising Jay in the wide landscapes.” – Review by Brad Mariano
Christopher Blauvelt, Certain Women
“Shot on 16mm by Reichardt regular Christopher Blauvelt, [Certain Women] has a muted beauty. Blauvelt moves easily between wide-open spaces – like Gina’s property or Jamie’s ranch – and the claustrophobic interiors of cars. While the former serve to visualise the isolation and loneliness of the women, the latter suggest that even human proximity often fails to result in any real intimacy.” – Review by Megan Nash
Best Musical Score: Scott Walker, The Childhood of a Leader
“Corbet moves us through Prescott’s acts of rebellion with bombastic chapter dividers, which prepare us for numbered “tantrums” through text. Something much darker is suggested through Scott Walker’s screeching, terrifying (and only rarely invoked) orchestral score.” – Review by Conor Bateman
Special Prizes
Most Divisive Film: It’s Only the End of the World (1 HR, 3 R, 4 NR, 1 SNR)
Best Singular Shots: Aquarius (beach-to-apartment zoom shot), No Home Movie (the pixellated close-up of the Skype display)
Best Lip-Sync Performances: Chevalier (Makis Papadimitriou performing “Lovin’ You” by Minnie Riperton), Viva (Héctor Medina performing “El Amor” by Massiel)
Worst Performance in a Recommended Film: Jared Harris in Certain Women
Most Impressive Male Gentialia: Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic
Short Film Better Than The Feature It Preceded: Manoman (better than Patchwork)
Worst Scheduling Clash: Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles with Notes on Blindness / Psycho Raman (Raman Raghav 2.0)
Best Non-Festival Film Released During the Festival: The Wailing
Best Throwaway Gag: The Iceland stake-out in War on Everyone
Interviews (8)
- Wang Yichun, Writer/Director of What’s in the Darkness
- Peter Middleton, Writer/Director of Notes on Blindness
- Mirjana Karanović, Writer/Director of A Good Wife
- Ivo M. Ferreira, Writer/Director of Letters From War
- Kazuhiro Soda, Director of Oyster Factory
- Oliver Hermanus, Writer/Director of The Endless River
- Sara Jordenö, Director of Kiki
- Jan Gassman, Director of Europe, She Loves
Other Coverage
Reviews (46)
* = review from a previous festival