The Sydney Film Festival has unveiled its 2026 Screenability and Family programs, spotlighting eight films that are pushing storytelling forward, from eye-opening disability-led filmmaking to imaginative adventures for younger audiences.<\/p>\n
Screenability, the Festival\u2019s dedicated program for films by and about people living with disabilities, marks its tenth year. Over the past decade, it has carved out vital space for stories that are often sidelined in mainstream cinema. <\/p>\n
\u201cScreenability is about opening the screen up, not just to new stories, but to the people telling them,\u201d says SFF Director Nashen Moodley. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd with our Family films, it\u2019s pure cinema joy. Big ideas, big emotions, and the kind of stories that hook you early and stay with you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leading this year\u2019s announcement is Screenability\u2019s trio of feature films, each offering a mix of disability storytelling shaped by heart, humour, and real emotional weight.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among them is Retreat, the feature debut of British Deaf filmmaker Ted Evans, whose work has long centred on Deaf culture and visual storytelling. Known for his award-winning short, The End, Evan directs an all-Deaf cast in the psychological thriller. The film follows a brooding drama about Eva, a young woman seeking connection within an isolated Deaf community, only to discover the cracks beneath its utopian surface.<\/p>\n
Also screening is Joybubbles, the Sundance\u2011selected debut documentary from Rachael J. Morrison, produced by Sarah Winshall (notably worked on I Saw the TV Glow). The film examines the extraordinary life of Josef Carl Engressia Jr., who was born blind, yet gifted with perfect pitch. His remarkable sensitivity to pitch later fueled his pioneering work as a phone\u2011phreak and early hacker, using sound as his primary tool.<\/p>\n
Rounding out the three features is You Look Fine, an award\u2011winning documentary from comedian and filmmaker J. Snow. Blending humour with raw honesty, Snow documents offers a rare first-person perspective by bringing the camera to hospital rooms and across his treatment with sickle cell disease. Through his intimate storytelling, Snow captures the realities of chronic illness, medical dismissal, and resilience, earning both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Slamdance.<\/p>\n
These features will be accompanied by equally compelling shorts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When You Hear Hoofbeats, a pointed look at medical gaslighting. Sarsaparilla, a playful Western where rivalry transforms into line dancing. And Trapeze, Jeremy Lowren\u010dev\u2019s movement-led exploration of Deaf identity and ancestral connection.<\/p>\n
Alongside Screenability, the Festival\u2019s Family Films program offers two sweeping tales for all audiences. The Last Whale Singer, a Zurich Film Festival selection that follows a young humpback whale who must find his voice to save the ocean. As well as The Desert Child by Gilles de Maistre, which retells the astonishing true story of Hadara, a boy who grew up among ostriches in the Sahara, his life retold through a teenage writer uncovering her grandfather\u2019s past.<\/p>\n