Being given the opening night spot is, in itself, high industry applause. Goldstone‘s applause is not Ivan Sen’s first. His first feature film, Beneath the Clouds, screened at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, won the Premiere First Movie Award at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival and won the 2002 Best Director Award at the Australian Film Institute Awards.

His documentary, Yellow Fella, screened in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005.

His feature film, Toomelah, was selected to have its world premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival 2011 in Un Certain Regard. It received a standing ovation. The film then won the Grand Prix at the Pacific Meridian Film Festival 2011 and the UNESCO Prize at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2011.

Goldstone is Ivan Sen’s fourth feature and stars Aaron Pederson, Jacki Weaver, David Wenham, David Gulpilil, Cheng Pei-Pei, Michelle Lim Davidson and Tom E. Lewis.

It will have its premiere on the opening night of Sydney Film Festival 2016 at the State Theatre on Wednesday 8 June 2016.

“From experience we know the Sydney Film Festival opening night is a very special screening here in Australia. Goldstone is about us, and our cultural crossroads. The first screening of the film anywhere in the world will be here, at home in our country, on country, where it should be,” Sen commented.

In Goldstone, Aaron Pederson reprises his role as the troubled Indigenous detective, Jay Swan. Audiences met him first in Sen’s Mystery Road, whose international premiere was a Special Presentation at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival. That film, with Hugo Weaving, Ryan Kwanten, Tasma Walton and Jack Thompson as well as Pederson in the cast, opened the Sydney Film Festival in 2013.

“The Festival is very proud to open with the world premiere of this outstanding Australian film,” added Festival Director Nashen Moodley.

“Goldstone is a complex and layered work that comes together brilliantly in Ivan Sen’s signature outback noir style.”

Goldstone was produced by Bunya Productions in association with Photoplay Films and post house, Gingerbread Man. Distribution is by Transmission Films.