“All We Imagine as Light” to win Sydney Film Festival? The 2024 Cannes International Film Festival may have ended. That doesn’t mean there aren’t still plenty of film festivals this summer to look forward to. This includes the Sydney Film Festival running from the 5 – 16 June, which has added a number of Cannes premieres to their already stacked slate.
Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light” is one of the most anticipated, fresh off winning the Grand Prix award at Cannes. Following the journey of a pair of Mumbai nurses, the film achieved universal critical acclaim at Cannes, debuting with a spectacular Metacritic score of 93. The festival will also serve as the Australian premiere of Yorgos Lanthimos’ darkly comedic anthology “Kinds of Kindness”, starring Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Jesse Plemons, the latter of which picked up the award for Best Actor at Cannes.
These exciting titles will be joined by “Motel Destino” from Karim Aïnouz, a vibrant thriller set to the backdrop of an erotic motel, Miguel Gomes’ “Grand Tour” chronicling a groom pursuing a bride across British-controlled Asia in the early twentieth century, and Christophe Honoré’s Marcello Mio a meta comedy following the daughter of legendary Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni.
Steve McQueen’s monumental documentary about a Dutch city under Nazi rule, “Occupied City,” which premiered at the 2023 Cannes, will also be screened, in addition to another documentary from Maciek Hamera, “In the Rearview,” a pertinent film following Ukrainian civilians during the ongoing war.
Finally, Halfdan Ulmman Tondel’s “Armand” starring Renate Reinsve, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section and for which he won the award for best first-time director, is included in this diverse lineup, alongside “Viet and Nam,” a romantic drama about two coal miners from Truong Minh Quy will hope to replicate the rave reviews it received out of Cannes from the Sydney audience.
“All We Imagine as Light,” “Grand Tour,” “Kinds of Kindness,” “Marcello Mio,” and “Viet and Nam” are all competing at the festival. The winner will receive an eye-watering $60,000!
