From Cult Favourites to Comedic Legends: SXSW Sydney 2025 Screen Festival First Look

The SXSW Sydney 2025 Screen Festival returns with a standout first wave—featuring buzzy festival titles, bold directorial debuts and a celebration of one of Hollywood’s most iconic comedic directors. With something for every kind of screen-lover, this year’s program is already shaping up to be one to remember.

Paul Feig to Receive Inaugural SXSW Sydney Screen Pioneer Award

This year, we’re thrilled to honour acclaimed filmmaker Paul Feig with the very first SXSW Sydney Screen Pioneer Award, recognising his groundbreaking contributions to genre filmmaking and screen culture. Feig—best known for Bridesmaids, Spy, The Heat, and cult-classic series Freaks and Geeks—has helped shape modern comedy with heart, humour and unforgettable characters.

To celebrate his legacy, we’ll present a special retrospective of Feig’s most iconic works, spotlighting the director’s unmatched influence on screen storytelling. 

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Outrageous, Outlandish & Unmissable: New Screen Titles Announced

The first wave of feature films making their way to SXSW Sydney is packed with buzzworthy titles straight from Sundance, SXSW, and beyond:

• By Design – Amanda Kramer’s surreal, body-swap dramedy starring Juliette Lewis, Mamoudou Athie and Robin Tunney promises an absurd, polarising ride.
  
  
• Dead Lover – Grace Glowicki’s horror comedy and winner of SXSW’s NEON Auteur Award dives into obsession, trauma and twisted romance.
  
  
• $POSITIONS – A sharp, twitchy comedy with equal parts chaos and charm—an anxiety dream for the hyper-digital age.
  
  
• Zodiac Killer Project – Charlie Shackleton’s enigmatic and much-hyped “almost-film” offers a fascinating, meta take on true crime obsession.
  
  
• Bokshi – A haunting supernatural folk horror from Bhargav Saikia, exploring myth and magic through a distinctly Nepali lens.
  
  
• The Last Sacrifice – A chilling folk horror documentary that explores forgotten rituals and the shadows they cast today.
  
  

Short Films, Big Impact

Short film lovers are in for a treat with an eclectic showcase of international standouts, award winners and Australian premieres. Highlights include:

• Stomach Bug – BAFTA-nominated and winner of SXSW’s Best Midnight Short, Stomach Bug follows the disturbing unravelling of a single father struggling to cope with empty nest syndrome as it begins to manifest physically
• Chasing The Party – Produced by Oscar® winner Sam Rockwell, Chasing The Party follows two suburban teens chasing "It Girl" status as they dive headfirst into the Lower East Side party scene—only to confront the sobering realities of growing up and leaving innocence behind.
• Fusion – an experimental animation experience produced by drawing both sound and picture onto 35mm film
• Hurikan – Jan Saska’s irresistibly clever short film which won the coveted Audience Award at Annecy
• Steak Dinner – NEON x Kodak Short Film Award finalist, Steak Dinner follows Casey, whose plans for a romantic evening unravel when her girlfriend brings home a wounded, possibly otherworldly creature, blurring the lines between love, horror and absurdity.

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Conference Sessions: Creativity, Courage and Chaos

This year’s Screen Festival doesn’t stop at screenings. The first wave of conference sessions dive into the creative process, with bold conversations and practical workshops for storytellers, makers and dreamers alike.

Highlights include:

Adaptation Sickness or: How To Write True Stories For TV Without Being Sued
How do we tell true stories? How can we be respectful of survivors, thorough in our research, humane in representation, and engaging to an audience all at once? How do we bring humanity when portraying terrible individuals? How does a writer take and mould the truth into a powerful drama, while deftly avoiding the exploitation or sensationalism that can lead to legal trouble? In today’s TV landscape, these are the questions storytellers must consider when walking the tightrope of adaptation, and the ones we’ll be exploring in conversation with Sam Strauss, creator and co-writer of ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’, and Anya Beyersdorf, creator of ‘Fake’ and co-writer of ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’, moderated by Australian screenwriter Dr Benjamin Law.

Overcoming Procrastination: A Workshop for Creatives
Are you a victim of procrastination, perfectionism or imposter syndrome? When facing big goals and creative challenges, do you find yourself playing small and self-sabotaging? Nothing is more frustrating than being passionate, driven and creative, but getting in your own way time and time again. Join Dr Ash King, Support Act's in-house psych (and recovering self-saboteur) to learn why we can be our own worst enemy in our creative work and explore strategies to reconcile conflicting parts of ourselves. Through interactive group activities and self-reflection prompts, you will explore how self-sabotage shows up for you, and learn fresh strategies to manage it and, in the process, enhance your productivity, resilience, and creative bravery.

This is just the beginning of what’s shaping up to be an unmissable year for the SXSW Sydney Screen Festival. With more features, shorts, speakers and sessions still to be revealed, we can’t wait to bring you the boldest, weirdest and most moving stories from around the world and right here at home.

To stay updated and explore the program, head to https://www.sxswsydney.com/screen-showcase.