Setting Sun Film Festival (SSFF) is celebrating its tenth year with the promise to deliver a program highlighting cultural diversity for its 2023 edition.

Running from May 11 to May 21 the festival will offer sessions at the Sun Theatre (Yarraville), Kindred Studios, and the Greek Centre. The online festival will screen from May 19 to May 26.

To celebrate turning ten, SSFF will launch at the Sun Theatre Yarraville, where it all began. Audiences will enjoy some of the best short films from the 2023 program. The ticket price includes a glass of champagne, a 90-minute program, and a finalist award ceremony. The event will be hosted by the award-winning spoken word poet, musician, and cabaret star Amy Bodossian.

“Council has been proudly supporting the Setting Sun Film Festival since its humble beginnings at The Sun Theatre in 2013. That’s ten wonderful years of cinema magic, right here in Melbourne’s west. I encourage you to celebrate the Festival’s milestone with us by immersing yourself in one (or many) of the films in this year’s awe-inspiring 14-day program,” says Mayor of Maribyrnong, Councillor Sarah Carter.

The SSFF is the premier festival of the western suburbs and an international festival that attracts entries from around the world. It is part of the City of Maribyrnong’s Festival City calendar.

“The Setting Sun Film Festival is a beloved festival, and we look forward to seeing lots of people at our sessions. There’s something for everyone,” says Festival Director Anna Bourozikas.

The festival is also partnering with Filmonik Kabaret, who will be running a 72-hour film production event from May 15 to May 19. Filmmakers, actors, musicians, and writers will come together to create short films that will screen as part of the festival.

The festival’s program highlights include screenings by local and emerging filmmakers, a program of female filmmakers (Australia’s oldest), a French language program with shorts that screened at Cannes, a program from the Athens Short Film Festival, Access Cinema (a selection of films featuring people living with disabilities), an array of international films, an LGBQTI+ program, and a retrospective of winning films from the last ten years.

One of the festival’s highlights is the film Silent Trilogy, by the renowned Peruvian filmmaker Daniel Rodriguez-Risco. He has written and directed several diverse films, including El acuarelista, El vientre, Siete Semillas, Trilogía Muda, and Cuadrilátero, several of which have been critical and box-office successes and have been distributed by international platforms such as HBO, Netflix, FOX, and CANAL PLUS, among others.

ATHENS SHORT FILM FESTIVAL Program (Psarokokalo) – Films by Greek and Cypriot filmmakers from the Athens Short Film Festival

  •  The Boar – 20:00 Drama/Greece

Dir. Konstantinos Tsiodoulos

Plot: Fotis returns to a deserted village in the Northern Greece mountains for his deceased father’s will announcement.

  •  ΑΓΚΑΘΙ (THORN) – 08:50 Drama/Greece

Dir. Alexander Stamatiadis

Plot: In a remote gas station in the heart of winter, a place where time stands still, three strangers cross paths and reshape time in their own way. An audiovisual journey that explores masculine hypersensitivity in a conservative and religious rural Greece.

  •  A Summer Place-20:00 Drama/Cyprus

Dir. Alexandra Matheou

Plot: Summer is a permanent state of mind in Limassol, a once small seaside town in Cyprus that has transformed into the oligarch paradise of the Mediterranean. Being both a player and a victim of this city transformation as a food stylist, Tina is depressed. On the day of her birthday, she is ready to give up on everything, until an extraordinary encounter changes her life.

  •  11:20 -13:50 Drama/Greece

Dir. Dimitris Nakos

Plot: Olga, a domestic worker originally from Albania, will be in a house she works in downtown Athens, at the right time. Or at the wrong one?

  •  Emulsion Experimental – 07:40 Greece

Dir. Vasilis Kalemos

Plot: The narrator wonders, looking back, trying to think of the moment he would like if not to relive, to take with him forever.

  •  The Wanting Drama – 17:59 United Kingdom

Dir. Alexandros Mattei

Plot: Adam goes to his estranged father’s wake, avoiding his own estranged daughter’s birthday.

  •  Summer Breeze – 15:16 Romance/Greece

Dir. Alexandros Rellos

Plot: A recently divorced middle-aged man receives a smartphone from his daughter and reconnects with the first love of his life who asks him to meet.

When: Sunday, 21 May 5pm – 7.30pm AEST

Where: Greek Centre

Tickets here