Sydney Film Festival 2026 puts fashion in focus with Coppola doc’s Australian premiere and world debuts
Sydney Film Festival will put style under the spotlight this year, unveiling a dedicated strand on fashion that includes the Australian premiere of Sofia Coppola’s first documentary and a world premiere from a local director. The festival runs from June 3 to 14.
Sartorial: Fashion on Film, a seven-title program exploring how clothing reflects and shapes society, is headlined by Marc by Sofia, the debut documentary from Sofia Coppola. The film focuses on the legacy of her longtime friend, designer Marc Jacobs.
The festival will also host the world premiere of French Girls, a feature from Australian filmmaker Hyun Lee about a construction worker who is scouted to model and encounters the glamour and grunge of that life. The remaining selections span decades and vantage points on the industry: Frederick Wiseman’s 1981 film Model offers a pared-back portrait of a modelling agency; Agnès Varda’s Jane B.
par Agnès V takes an unconventional look at her friend Jane Birkin; and Wim Wenders’s Notebook on Cities and Clothes follows designer Yohji Yamamoto. From the 1990s, the program includes the satire Prêt-à-Porter, filmed during Paris Fashion Week and featuring Julia Roberts, Tim Robbins, Kim Basinger and Lauren Bacall alongside fashion figures Jean‑Paul Gaultier, Issey Miyake, Helena Christensen and Claudia Schiffer.
Jia Zhangke’s 2007 documentary Useless traces garments from shop racks back to their source while examining the human cost of industrial production in China’s garment sector. Beyond the fashion focus, additional festival titles were announced on April 1.
They include Silenced, directed by Selina Miles, which explores defamation in the wake of the Me Too movement and follows lawyer Jennifer Robinson and survivors Brittany Higgins and Amber Heard. Among the performances to watch: Australian actor Dacre Montgomery appears with Bill Skårsgard and Al Pacino in Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire.
Charli XCX takes a screen turn in Erupcja, and Isabelle Huppert stars in the vampire-themed The Blood Countess. Festival favourites Silent Friend, Yellow Letters, Filipiñana, Memory of Princess Mumbai and Past Future Continuous are also on the slate. The Sydney Film Festival runs from June 3 to 14.