Sydney Film Festival today announces the 026 Screenability and Family programs, presenting eight new films as part of the 73rd Sydney Film Festival from 3–14 June.
“Screenability is about opening the screen up, not just to new stories, but to the people telling them,” said SFF Director Nashen Moodley. “And with our Family films, it’s pure cinema joy. Big ideas, big emotions, and the kind of stories that hook you early and stay with you. This is where the next generation of film lovers begins.”
SCREENABILITY
Sydney Film Festival proudly presents Screenability for its tenth consecutive year, showcasing a vibrant lineup of films created by filmmakers living with disability and expanding the space for stories that are too often left unseen.
This year’s program features Retreat, Ted Evans’ debut psychological thriller with an all-Deaf cast, following a young woman whose arrival at a secluded Deaf wellness retreat in the English countryside sets a community unravelling.
In Joybubbles, Rachael J. Morrison’s Sundance-selected debut documentary follows Josef Carl Engressia Jr., born blind and gifted with perfect pitch, from his challenging childhood to becoming a pioneering phone hacker and founding figure of an underground subculture. Produced by Sarah Winshall (I Saw the TV Glow, SFF 2024). Some sessions will also be available with open audio description, offering the film going experience for blind audiences.
You Look Fine, winner of the Unstoppable Feature Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Slamdance, follows comedian J. Snow as he documents his life with sickle cell disease with humour, candour and unflinching honesty.
Three short films screen alongside the features. When You Hear Hoofbeats, following a young woman whose struggle to have her medical symptoms taken seriously leads her to believe she has been possessed; Sarsaparilla, in which a sheriff and his outlaw nemesis find unexpected common ground over a shared love of line dancing; and Trapeze, a deeply personal exploration of autonomy, ancestral ties and Deaf identity expressed through movement and Auslan choreography by Jeremy Lowrenčev.
FAMILY FILMS
Bring the whole family to Sydney Film Festival, where this year’s Family program delivers big-screen storytelling for younger audiences and adults alike.
The 2026 lineup includes The Last Whale Singer, a Zurich Film Festival selection following Vincent, a young humpback whale who must find his voice to save the ocean, in a sweeping animated adventure of friendship and self-belief. The Desert Child follows a teenage girl whose grandfather’s story of a boy raised by ostriches in the Sahara turns out to be true, in a family adventure rooted in resilience and connection to the land.
Tickets to Screenability, Family Films, Opening Night film Silenced, Sartorial: Fashion on Film, as well as FlexiPasses and subscriptions to Sydney Film Festival 2026 are on sale now at sff.org.au. Call 1300 733 733 or visit sff.org.au for more information. The full Sydney Film Festival program is announced on Wednesday 6 May 2026, when tickets to all films will be on sale.
