Bonus Flea: Sydney Film Festival 2025 picks you otherwise (maybe) wouldn't see!

Thoughts by Matthew Donlan

The Sydney Film Festival programme for 2025 released this week with over 200 films across the 12 days. Choosing what to see is difficult and everyone has their strategy but my game plan is to favour the films that you otherwise would never get to see.

Film festivals are the perfect place to discover a new love and push your tastes beyond what you would otherwise enjoy. Sure, you could go to the big films but they’re likely to get a theatrical release in a few months anyways. Why not go to that over 3-hour documentary about French eco-warriors (a real film I saw at MIFF last year)?

I’ve put together 12 films that you maybe wouldn’t see if not for SFF.*

• Yalla Parkour (Areeb Zuaiter)

“Our videos are the only way for the world to see us” - Ahmed Matar, Palestine. This quote, from one of the stars in this documentary, speaks to the power of film and the importance of pushing your viewing habits beyond your comforts.

• Videoheaven (Alex Ross Perry)

If you’re a lover of movies, you’ll probably want to check out this documentary about the wonderful world of video stores. Examining an institution of our industry that no longer exists, it seems both informative and entertaining. Also, it’s narrated by Maya Hawke.

• Gods of Stone (Ivan Castineiras Gallego)

Filmed over 15 years. Shot on 16mm. Ancient traditions in a modern world. This looks and sounds like a fascinating film, full of meditations, reflection and quiet commentary.

• Death of an Undertaker (Christian Byers)

An Australian docu-fiction about a Leichhardt funeral parlour shot over eight years. The debut feature from Aussie actor Christian Byers looks morbid yet compelling.

• Lesbian Space Princess (Emma Hough Hobbs & Leela Varghese)

This is an animated Australian queer comedy sci-fi which won the biggest LGBT+ award at the Berlinale. It’s also got a stacked Aussie cast of voice actors and is the directing duo’s debut feature!

• exergue - on documenta 14 (Dimitris Athiridis)

Okay so bear with me. This is a 14-hour documentary that screen across 3 days. About a curator as he assembles a 100-day exhibition in Athens, Greece. Is it self-indulgent or the pinnacle of form meeting subject? Either way, it sounds like event viewing you could not get anywhere else.

• Fwends (Sophie Somerville)

A mumble-core comedy set in Melbourne over one weekend. As much as I love films in regional/rural Australia, I feel like the modern urban Australian life isn’t seen on the big screen as much, so I am very excited to see how it plays into the story.

• The Wailing (Pedro Martin-Calero)

A horror film in the digital age where a woman is haunted by a figure only visible through a camera. The horror genre is often the most inventive when it comes to pushing the form with technology and with that premise, this film feels like another in that lineage.

• The President’s Cake (Hasan Hadi)

A young girl in 1990 Iraq is tasked with baking a cake for Saddam Hussein. It is rare for films to emerge from Iraq and even rarer to get a chance to see them on the big screen so I recommended checking this out.

• Ancestral Visions of the Future (Lemohang Mosese)

A meditative and impactful coming-home film from Lesotho, this film has a feeling that sets it apart from much of the program.

• Ciao Bambino (Edgardo Pistone)

This black-and-white Italian film is reminiscent of the Italian neorealists not only in form but in the use of first-time actors and the complexly real subject matter.

• 2000 Meters to Andriivka (Mstsylslav Chernov)

Some may wonder whether another documentary about the Ukrainian war is needed. I would argue that it is some of the most important filmmaking today and is required viewing for everyone until the war is over.

Please share this post with your friends and spread the word on good cinema

Go check out the full programme, book a youth pass (best value-for-money at the festival!) and watch a whole bunch of movies!

*I have not seen these films and these recommendations are based solely on title, images, trailer, synopsis and review snippets. The Fleapit does not take any responsibility if you see a film from this list and do not like it.