Classic Cinemas

Sean Price Williams (cinematographer – Good Time) makes his directorial debut with a hilarious surrealist odyssey across the East Coast of contemporary America.

When Lillian (Talia Ryder – Never Rarely Sometimes Always), a high school senior from South Carolina is separated from her schoolmates during a school trip, she embarks on a fractured fairy tale travelogue into America, where she is granted access to a variety of the strange factions that proliferate the present-day unreality of contemporary life. Alongside a star turn from Ryder, THE SWEET EAST features a stacked cast of emerging talent that includes Jacob Elordi (Saltburn), Ayo Edebiri (Bottoms), Simon Rex (Red Rocket), Earl Cave, Jeremy O Harris and Rish Shah.

Screenwriter Nick Pinkerton will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A to celebrate the Australian theatrical release of The Sweet East. Select screenings will include double bills featuring Ozploitation classics, selected by Pinkerton, a member of the New York Film Critics Circle whose critical writing has appeared in Sight & Sound, Village Voice, ArtForum and other publications.

The Sweet East had its World Premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival Directors Fortnight, its US Premiere at the 2023 New York Film Festival and screened in MIFF's Bright Horizons competition.