The Travelling Film Festival, started by David Stratton in 1974, tours to 18 regional locations year-round, including six Queensland centres, nine in New South Wales and three in the Northern Territory, as well as Sydney to Hobart with the TFF at Sea.

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot, starring Joaquin Pheonix alongside Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara and Jack Black, will open the festival in Port Macquarie.

“We’re delighted to bring the festival back to the Mid North Coast,” said festival manager, Karina Libbey.

“From critically-acclaimed award-winners at Cannes, to some of the Sydney Film Festival’s most well-received films as voted by the audience, the program is packed with cinematic gems.”

Closing the festival in Port Macquarie will be American Animals, starring a cast of young Hollywood talent including Evan Peters (American Horror Story) and Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk, The Killing of a Sacred Deer).

Majestic Cinemas will screen international hits including 2018 Sydney Film Prize winner The Heiresses, an unusual look at the lives of wealthy Paraguayan families, through the tribulations of a lesbian couple; winner of the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at Sydney Film Festival 2018 The Insult; and winner of the Society of Dramatic Author and Composers Prize at Cannes Critics’ Week, Woman At War.

Port Macquarie will exclusively screen darkly funny drama The Kindergarten Teacher, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Gael García Bernal; emotional drama Daughter Of Mine from Laura Bispuri (Sworn Virgin, SFF 2015); and wartime love story Transit, from Christian Petzold (Barbara, TFF 2013; Phoenix, TFF 2015).