SYDNEY - The 64th Sydney Film Festival program was officially launched today by Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley.

“The Sydney Film Festival is a collection of perspectives from many of the world’s most interesting storytellers, who reflect our shared desire to understand today’s world – from refugees and gender rights, to attitudes about country and community,” said Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley.

“From the heart of the ancient Pilbara, to the rubble of besieged Aleppo, or messages from the universe delivered 40 years later, filmmakers go to incredible lengths and dedicate many years of their lives to inspire, enlighten and entertain us.”

“A film Festival is the one place where all of these perspectives come together and offer us a temperature reading of the global zeitgeist: of who, what, where and why we are today,” he said.

Sydney Film Festival has gone from strength to strength in recent year, since 2011 attendance has increased by 62% to 178,500 filmgoers.  In 2017 the Festival will present 288 films from 59 countries including 37 World Premieres, bringing together hundreds of international and local stories.

The winner of the Sydney Film Prize is announced at the Festival’s Closing Night Gala on Sunday 18 June. Previous winners include: Aquarius (2016), Arabian Nights (2015); Two Days, One Night (2014); Only God Forgives (2013); Alps (2012); A Separation (2011); Heartbeats (2010); Bronson (2009); and Hunger (2008).

The competition is endorsed by FIAPF, the regulating body for international film festivals, and is judged by a jury of five international and Australian filmmakers and industry professionals.

The Festival will screen ten films direct from the Cannes Film Festival.

Four films are in the running for the Palme d'Or: Sofia Coppola’s seductive new thriller The Beguiled, starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning; acclaimed Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s Okja starring Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal and An Seo-hyun; celebrated German director Fatih Akin’s In the Fade starring Diane Kruger; and master Austrian director Michael Haneke’s Happy End starring Isabelle Huppert.

Four films coming from Cannes to the Sydney Film Festival are directorial debuts: Sea Sorrow, from 80-year-old Oscar-winning actor and UK based political activist Vanessa Redgrave; Wind River from US screenwriter Taylor Sheridan - starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen; New Jersey story Patti Cake$ from US director Geremy Jasper – which gives Australian actress Danielle Macdonald a breakthrough role; and Brigsby Bear, a comedy with Saturday Night Live’s Kyle Mooney from US director Dave McCary.

Also screening at the Festival from Cannes is Napalm, the latest documentary, set in North Korea, by renowned French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, now 91, and direct from Cannes Classics, the restored version of Luis Buñuel’s 1967 Belle de Jour.

Two films screening at Cannes are also contenders for the Festival’s Sydney Film Prize: The Beguiled and Happy End.