Introducing the 2026 Official Competition Jury
Meet the jury awarding $60,000 and the Sydney Film Prize to an “audacious, cutting-edge and courageous” film.
The 2026 Official Competition jury will be presided over by Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho (The Secret Agent, SFF 2026), alongside Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi (On Body and Soul, SFF 2017), Singaporean filmmaker Boo Junfeng (Apprentice), Australian cinematographer Ari Wegner (The Power of the Dog), and Australian First Nations producer and director Sally Riley (Mystery Road).
The winner of the Sydney Film Prize is announced at the Festival’s Closing Night Gala on Sunday 14 June. Previous winners include: It Was Just an Accident (2025), There’s Still Tomorrow (2024), The Mother of All Lies (2023), Close (2022), There Is No Evil (2021), Parasite (2019), The Heiresses (2018), On Body and Soul (2017), Aquarius (2016), Arabian Nights (2015), Two Days, One Night (2014), Only God Forgives (2013), Alps (2012), A Separation (2011), Heartbeats (2010), Bronson (2009), and Hunger (2008).
The competition is the only film competition in Australia endorsed by FIAPF, the regulating body for international film festivals, and is judged by a jury of international and Australian filmmakers and industry professionals.
Jury President Kleber Mendonça Filho will also present The Tropical Trail, a personal selection of Brazilian films, spanning six decades of cinema and showcasing Brazil’s diverse culture, its beauty and the irony of its inequality and its violence.
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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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