The first batch of films for Sydney’s 2022 Film Festival have been revealed

The Sydney Film Festival is right around the corner for cinephiles in NSW, and the first 22 movies released for this year’s lineup already look tempting as hell.

We won’t get to see the full program lineup or buy tickets until May 11, but until then feast your eyes on these first few highlights of SFF 2022. The in-person celebration of cinema will run from June 8 to 19, and you’re certain to discover a new fave project or filmmaker within its many screenings.

The tantalising trailer shown below is barely a minute long, but already taunts us with characters you’ll want to meet, visceral, gorgeous cinematography, and a few celebrity faces too. Sex Education star Asa Butterfield is one of those familiar figures, appearing alongside GoT star Gwendoline Christie in Peter Strickland’s next kooky Gothic oddity Flux Gourmet.

We also get glimpses of Harry Melling in Amanda Kramer’s kinky, stylish gender-bender Please Baby Please: Melling and genre witch Andrea Riseborough play a stale married couple turned inside out by encounters with a greaser gang.

Some of the first fascinating Australian debuts we’re getting a taste of include the SXSW social media horror hit Sissy, backseat commute documentary The Plains, Sydney street dance story Keep Stepping, and tearjerking festival road trip 6 Festivals, in which a gang of mates visit countless live gigs to distract themselves from a terrible diagnosis.

There’s new movies from John Michael McDonagh and French weirdo Quentin Dupieux, and a wild-looking post-WWII Vienna thriller that nabbed the audience award at Locarno. Frankly, we’re already a bit inundated with options here, even before the entire program is available.

Check out the lineup so far here, with details on how and when to buy tickets here.