Sydney Film Festival celebrates its 61st edition this year, but remains vibrant and dynamic, presenting the very latest in world cinema and tracking the trends, the new talents and new cinematic forms.

At the centre of the festival are the filmmakers who create the incredible works we present, and this year we will host over 100 filmmaker guests who will participate in screenings and panel discussions including an ‘Inside The Rover’ special event with Vivid Ideas at the Town Hall.

The popular Sydney Film Festival Hub returns to Town Hall and promises to be bigger and better than ever before with a Festival Bar and lounge, program gurus to help you choose your films, a discount ticket booth, a stunning photo exhibition, and many talks and live performances.

Over at the beautiful State Theatre we will present some remarkable films including the 12 films in the Official Competition, and it promises to be a tightly fought competition this year.

The Sounds On Screen program brings together a broad range of tremendous musicians – from Fela Kuti to Belle And Sebastian to Pulp to Jimi Hendrix, and our Freak Me Out selection is sure to elicit some terrified screams, and a fair amount of laughs.

While championing exciting new filmmakers and films, we also honour great works from the past, including a Robert Altman retrospective, a selection of restored classics, and a special tribute to the great Japanese animation company, Studio Ghibli. In this Salute to Studio Ghibli we present Isao Takahata’s latest film The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya, the classics My Neighbor Totoro and Grave Of The Fireflies, and the splendid documentary The Kingdom Of Dreams And Madness.

Overall, this program reflects what we view as the best of international and Australian cinema, and we invite you to explore this selection and hope that you love these films as much as we do.

Sydney Film Festival 2014 is showing from Wednesday June 4 until Sunday June 15. The full program and tickets are available online.

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