2023 Upfronts: SBS World Movies

SBS has confirmed key film titles coming to SBS World Movies in 2023.

Benedetta
TX: November 2022 on SBS World Movies*
Set in 17th century Italy, Benedetta (2021) is a haunting film centring ecstatic visions and queer desire directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Charlotte Rampling. Pescia, Tuscany, a young woman (Virginia Efira) who has been capable of performing miracles since childhood joins a convent as a novice. The surrounding plague-ravaged community is impacted by her powers immediately and irrevocably as she pursues her abilities alongside her lover, Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia). Cannes Official Selection

The Truth
TX: December 2022 on SBS World Movies*
The Truth (2019) intermingles famed rumour and personal stories surrounding one family. Fabienne (Catherine Deneuve) is an iconic French cinema actor. When she publishes her memoirs, her daughter Lumir (Juliette Binoche) returns from New York to Paris with her husband (Ethan Hawke) and young daughter in tow. As mother and daughter tentatively re-establish bonds, accounts will be settled, secrets revealed, and loves confessed.

Drive My Car
TX: January 2023 on SBS World Movies
Adapted from Haruki Murakami’s short story, Drive My Car (2021) is a haunting road-movie about the challenges of love and loss. When Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director is mourning the unexpected passing of his wife when he receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima. There, Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman is assigned to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900. Academy Award for Best International Feature Film Cannes Best Screenplay Award

Limbo
TX: January 2023 on SBS World Movies
Taking after Wes Anderson’s distinctive visual style, Ben Sharrock’s second feature Limbo (2020) is an off-beat and poignant tale about the refugee experience. This offbeat cross-cultural satire follows a group of refugees stuck on a remote fictional Scottish island awaiting asylum status. Throughout the film, the four men attempt to reconcile the hardships of their experiences with their tentative hope. The protagonist of the group is Omar: a talented musician, missing his family in Syria.
Cannes Official Selection

The Father
TX: January 2023 on SBS World Movies
The Father (2020) is an Academy Award winning film about a father (Anthony Hopkins) and daughter (Olivia Colman) coming to terms with a dementia prognosis. A man refuses all assistance from his daughter as he ages. As he tries to make sense of his changing circumstances. Soon he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality. Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role BAFTA Film Award for Best Leading Actor

Six Minutes to Midnight
TX: January 2023 on SBS World Movies
Six Minutes to Midnight (2020) is an espionage thriller based on true events. Starring Dame Judi Dench, Eddie Izzard, Jim Broadbent, and James D’Arcy. UK, Aug. 15, 1939, just prior to the start of WWII, an English teacher, his camera, and twenty German teenagers disappear from a coastal boarding school. Six days later, British intelligence agent Thomas Miller is tasked with investigating what happened to them, why, and what it could mean in the context of the fast-approaching conflict between England and Germany.

Portrait Of a Lady on Fire
TX: Early 2023 on SBS World Movies
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) is a masterful meditation on the intimacies of portraiture and love. France, 1760. Marianne (Noemie Merlant) is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adele Haenel), a young woman who has just left the convent. Because she is a reluctant bride-to-be, Marianne arrives under the guise of companionship, observing Héloïse by day and secretly painting her by firelight at night. Héloïse’s portrait soon becomes a collaborative testament to their love.
Cannes Best Screenplay Award

High Ground
TX: 2023 on SBS World Movies
Set against the landscapes of 1930s Arnhem Land, High Ground (2020) presents a fictionalised account of the Gan Gan massacre, and the events surrounding it. In a bid to save the last of his family, Gutjuk (Jacob Junior Nayinggul) teams up with ex-soldier Travis (Simon Baker) to track down Baywarra (Sean Mununggurr)—the most dangerous warrior in the Territory. As Travis and Gutjuk journey through the outback they begin to earn each other’s trust, but when the truth about Travis’ past actions is revealed, it is he who becomes the hunted.

Minari
TX: 2023 on SBS World Movies
A tender story about what binds us, Minari (2020) follows a Korean American family that moves to a tiny Arkansas farm in search of their own American Dream. Amidst the challenges of this new life in the strange and rugged Ozarks, they discover the undeniable resilience that togetherness provides and what really makes a home. This semi-autobiographical take on director Lee Isaac Chung’s childhood experiences engulfs you in the pitfalls and joys of pursuing American ideals in the 1980s for an immigrant family. Sundance Official Selection Academy Award for Best Actress in Supporting Role Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film

A Hero
TX: 2023 on SBS World Movies
From Academy Award Winning director Asghar Farhadi, A Hero (2021) is a timely thriller based on true events.
Rahim is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. But things do not go as planned. Cannes Grand Prix Winner

Ema
TX: 2023 on SBS World Movies
One of contemporary cinema’s most exciting and award-winning directors, Pablo Larraín presents a story of desire, performance, and family. Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, and striking newcomer Mariana Di Girolamo, Ema (2019) follows a couple as they deal with the aftermath of an adoption gone wrong. Toronto International Film Festival Official Selection

Supernova
TX: 2023 on SBS World Movies
Supernova (2020) is a quiet yet powerful romantic drama which questions what it means to love someone unconditionally. Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanely Tucci) have been together for twenty years. However, in the two years since Tusker was diagnosed with early on-set dementia their lives have changed. Eventually, they must confront the question of what it means to love one another in the face of Tusker’s illness.

Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom
TX: 2023 on SBS World Movies
An aspiring singer living with his grandmother in the capital of Bhutan dreams of getting a visa to move to Australia.
Academy Award Nomination for Best International Feature Film

Lingui: The Sacred Bonds
TX: 2023 on SBS World Movies
Amina (Achouackh Abakar), a practicing Muslim, lives with her daughter, 15-year-old Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio). When Amina learns Maria is pregnant and wants to abort the child, they face an impossible situation in a Chad where abortion is legally and morally condemned. Official Selection Cannes Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival

* 2022

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