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Australian Premiere of Silenced to open 73rd Sydney Film Festival

Silenced, Selina Miles’ Sundance-premiered Australian documentary, will open the 73rd edition of Sydney Film Festival on Wednesday 3 June at the State Theatre, followed by a post-screening celebration at Sydney Town Hall.

Announcements
Wed 22 April 2026

behind the headlines

Selina Miles’ documentary follows international human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson as she fights against the weaponisation of defamation law by alleged perpetrators to silence survivors and journalists, taking audiences inside the courtroom and behind the global headlines.

“We are proud to open the Festival with Silenced. Selina Miles has made a clear-eyed and urgent work that challenges audiences to question the systems that decide whose voices are heard and whose are suppressed.”
- Nashen Moodley, sydney film festival director

The film traces the cases of Brittany Higgins, Australian survivor and advocate against gendered violence; Catalina Ruiz-Navarro, Colombian journalist and co-founder of feminist magazine Volcánicas; and Amber Heard, whose defamation battle became one of the most high-profile legal cases in recent history. 

Inspired by Robinson’s book How Many More Women?, co-authored with Dr Keio Yoshida, the film premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

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“The opportunity to play at the State Theatre as the opening night Film for Sydney Film Festival is a dream come true, and a testament to the power of storytelling to elevate voices that might otherwise go unheard.”
- SELINA MILES, SILENCED DIRECTOR

From International Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Miles and Blayke Hoffman, Silenced is produced by Australia’s Stranger Than Fiction (Mountain, SFF 2017; River, SFF 2021; Deeper, SFF 2025).

Tickets to Silenced, the Sartorial: Fashion on Film strand, Flexipasses and Subscriptions to Sydney Film Festival 2026 are on sale now. The full Sydney Film Festival program is announced on Wednesday 6 May 2026, when tickets to all films will be on sale.

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Aboriginal FlagTorres Strait Flag

Sydney Film Festival acknowledges Australia’s First Nations People as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land, and pay respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, upon whose Country SFF is based.

We honour the storytelling and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia.

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