Sydney Film Festival 2025 (SFF 2025) kicks off today, and just in time, the festival has unveiled nine new additions to its program, fresh from this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Among them are three French-language films and three French co-productions in other languages. Together, they explore powerful themes including identity, motherhood, justice, politics, and personal freedom—further enriching the festival’s already strong Francophone and France-linked offering (read about the other French language features here)
FILMS IN FRENCH ADDED TO SFF 2025 PROGRAM
The Little Sister (La Petite Dernière)
Country: France, Germany
Language: French
Director: Hafsia Herzi
Cast: Nadia Melliti, Park Ji-Min, Amina Ben Mohamed
Cannes Awards: Winner of Queer Palm and Best Actress
The Little Sister showcases a remarkable breakout performance in this deeply moving portrait of a French-Algerian woman attempting to reconcile her sexuality with her cultural identity.
Grounded by astounding lead performances, Hafsia Herzi’s film gently navigates the internal conflict between sexuality and religion. Fatima ((incredible newcomer Nadia Melliti)) is at the precipice of graduating high school. She dresses and acts like “one of the boys”, but gets into a fight one day when her sexuality is challenged.
The altercation triggers an emotional asthma attack for Fatima – which serendipitously leads to an unexpected meet-cute with a Korean nurse, Ji-Na (Ji-Min Park; Return to Seoul, SFF 2022). While she dives into the dating apps, partaking in chatty drinks and steamy hook-ups, Fatima slowly falls in love with Ji-Na. But she is compelled to find a way to square this newfound love – for Ji-Na, for herself, and for dating women – with her Muslim faith.
Countries: France, Spain
Language: Spanish and French
Director: Oliver Laxe
Cast: Sergi López, Brúno Nuñez, Stefania Gadda
Cannes Prize: Cannes Jury Prize
This cinematic shockwave, produced by Pedro Almodovar, will cause a stir everywhere it screens. Energised with a propulsive techno soundtrack composed by Kangding Ray (winner of the Cannes Soundtrack Prize), Sirât explores existence, loss and grief in ways that will leave you breathless.
In the tumultuous near future, amidst the mountains of Morocco, a father (Sergi López, Pan’s Labyrinth) and his young son Esteban (Brúno Nuñez) go from rave to rave. They’re searching for Mar, the daughter who disappeared at one such event months ago. On their travels they encounter a diverse group of revellers escaping the harshness of the world in favour of the freedom they find in desert and in the hypnotism of the music.
Finding a sense of community, father and son join the ravers for one last party in the hope that they will finally find Mar. What follows is wild, unpredictable, dizzying and utterly visceral. Beguiling and disturbing, Sîrat (referring to the bridge said to connect heaven and hell) is bravura filmmaking and absolutely unforgettable.
Countries : France, Belgium
Language: French
Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Cast : Babette Verbeek, Lucie Laruelle, Elsa Houben
Cannes Prize: Best Screenplay
The Dardenne brothers (Two Days, One Night, Sydney Film Prize 2014) return with another superbly affecting drama, about five young mothers housed in a Belgian shelter.
In their latest work – also one of their most acclaimed – the revered Belgian filmmakers, explore the hopes and vulnerabilities of five young mothers at a shelter in Liège with tender clarity. Jessica craves the acceptance of her own mother, while Perla hopes that a baby will draw her delinquent boyfriend closer. Recovering addict Julie sees a brighter future for herself as a mother alongside her caring fiancé, but Ariane feels desperately unprepared for the challenges ahead. Single mother Naïma, meanwhile, is newly employed and hopes to repair relations with her disapproving family.
Working from observations of a real shelter, the Dardennes skilfully interweave these narrative strands into a beautifully observed study of motherhood’s upheaval and the precious fragility of humanity.
FRENCH MULTINATIONAL PRODUCTIONS ADDED TO SFF 2025
These films are co-produced by France but are not in French. At least one of them features French actors.
Two Prosecutors (Deux Procureurs)
Country: France, Germany, Netherlands, Latvia, Romania, Lithuania
Language: Russian
Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Cast: Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Alexander Filippenko, Anatoli Beliy
Highest scored film on the Screen International 2025 Cannes Jury Grid
Sergei Loznitsa’s (In The Fog; Austerlitz, SFF 2017) masterful Cannes Competition contender follows a local prosecutor who dares question injustice in Stalinist Russia.
Soviet Union, 1937. In a dismal prison, letters from prisoners, begging for an intervention in their cases, are burned by the thousands. Somehow, one letter – written in blood – reaches the new local prosecutor, Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov, superb). With naïve determination and an enthusiasm for justice, Kornyev sets out to meet the letter’s author – a man who has suffered torture at the hands of the secret police. It is a meeting with staggering repercussions.
A vital chronicler of oppression in Russian history, Loznitsa has moved fluidly between fiction and documentary over his career. Here, working with phenomenal actors in a meticulously, beautifully staged film, he provides a terrifying snapshot of an era of extreme oppression and paranoia that speaks clearly to the present.
The Eagles of the Republic (Les Aigles de la République)
Countries : Sweden, France, Denmark
Language : Arabic
Director : Tarik Saleh
Cast : Fares Fares (Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes, Department Q: The Absent One), Lyna Khoudri (Papicha, The Three Musketeers: Milady and D’Artagnan, also in the Apple TV+ series Carême), Zineb Triki (from the series The Bureau and Vortex)
Direct from the Cannes Competition, Tarik Saleh’s (The Nile Hilton Incident, SFF 2017; Boy from Heaven, SFF 2022) incisive satirical thriller follows an Egyptian movie star as he’s coerced by shady political forces.
George Fahmy (played by the always-excellent Saleh regular Fares Fares) is Egypt’s biggest actor: known as the “Pharaoh of the Screen”, Fahmy appears in everything from historical dramas to sci-fis. He lives with his much younger lover and leads a charmed existence, despite being estranged from his wife and son. When he’s approached by the Egyptian government to star in a propaganda film, he recognises that he’s not really being asked but being instructed.
Finding himself embedded in a whole new strata of influence and power, Fahmy unwisely begins an affair with the wife of the dangerous general supervising the film, with grave repercussions. Utilising scathing satire, Saleh portrays an authoritarian society rife with paranoia, corruption and power games in this riveting political thriller.
Countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Philippines, Taiwan
Languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog and French
Director: Lav Diaz
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Ângela Azevedo, Amado Arjay Babon
Gael García Bernal stars as famed Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in this Cannes-selected, visually resplendent epic by Filipino auteur and SFF regular Lav Diaz.
Early in the 16th century, Magellan (García Bernal) falls out with the Portuguese king. He instead turns to the Spanish Crown to fund an expedition to the faraway Spice Islands, and bids his wife Beatriz farewell. At sea with his crew, violence, sabotage, mutiny and more unfurl, captured in stark, stunning tableaux. When Magellan at last reaches the Philippines, he becomes set on conquest and converting the Indigenous people to Christianity, but is met with powerful defiance.
Seen from Diaz’s forcefully anticolonial gaze, Magellan is no hero. Shot in brilliant colour and featuring a major star in Bernal, it’s an inviting point of entry to this contemporary master’s body of work, whilst being no less compromising than his usual oeuvre.
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From stories of intimate self-discovery to sweeping historical critiques, the newly announced French-language films and French co-productions bring added depth and global resonance to the Sydney Film Festival 2025 program. Whether confronting personal identity, political repression, the challenges of motherhood, or the legacies of colonialism, these films showcase the richness and diversity of Francophone and French-connected cinema today. With their critical acclaim from Cannes and compelling storytelling, these new selections promise to provoke thought, stir emotion, and spark conversation throughout the festival.
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KEY INFO FOR SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL 2025
WHAT: Sydney Film Festival 2025 (SFF 2025)
WHEN: 4-15 June 2025
WHERE: Various locations across Sydney
HOW: Purchase your individual tickets via the links above. If you’re going to see several films though, you may like to consider a film pass which makes it cheaper and can be purchased here
HOW MUCH:
SFF 2025 Individual ticket prices are as follows:
- Adult $26
- Concession/Senior $22
- Youth (17 & under) $20
SFF Flexipasses:
- Youth pass 6 (ages 15-24) $90 for 6 films
- Flexipass 10 $195 for 10 tickets (you can use it for multiple tickets in a single film session)
- Flexipass 20 $360 for 20 tickets
- Flexipass 30 $495 for 30 tickets
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What are you planning to see at SFF 2025?
If you’re looking for more film check out these articles
CHIFF 2025 brings French films with beloved characters to Australian screens this June and July
And for more events with links to France and the Francophonie happening in Australia, check out our What’s on in June
