Go-Betweens doco to premiere at Sydney Film Festival

A documentary tracing the history of iconic Brisbane band The Go-Betweens and a semi-fictional tour diary following British indie band Wolf Alice are among the films announced as part of the Sydney Film Festival’s Sounds On Screen program strand.

The Go-Betweens: Right Here, created by Red Dog director Kriv Stenders, was the first film announced as part of the Screen NSW – ABC TV Arts Documentary Feature Fund last year. Promising intimate access to the surviving members of the band, including Robert Forster, Lindy Morrison and Amanda Brown, the film tells the story of the band over the past thirty years in "a distinctly Queensland style". 

Meanwhile, On The Road is the latest from 9 Songs and 24 Hour Party People director Michael Winterbottom, who is known for his idiosyncratic approach to storytelling. The film interweaves a relatively straightforward rock doc about Wolf Alice on tour in the UK with the story of a flirtation between two fictional characters travelling with the band, a roadie (James McArdle) and a new member of the PR team (Leah Harvey).

Other films in the Sounds On Screen program include The Public Image Is Rotten, which focuses on The Sex Pistols’ still-controversial frontman John Lydon; Chavela, about trailblazing queer singer Chavela Vargas; and the previously announced Whitney: Can I Be Me, Rumble, and Liberation Day.

There’s also Smash It Up, a separate mini-program of punk films to celebrate four decades of the movement, that includes Julien Temple’s classic Sex Pistols mockumentary The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle and its factual counterpart The Filth & The Fury, John Waters’ Desperate Living, LA punk doco The Decline Of Western Civilization, and Derek Jarman’s Jubilee.

The full SFF program is available as of this morning.