Silenced: Powerful Doco Following Brittany Higgins’ & Amber Heard’s Cases To Open 2026 Sydney Film Festival

The Sydney Film Festival (SFF) has announced its 73rd edition will open with the Australian premiere of Silenced, the powerful Sundance‑premiered documentary from Australian director Selina Miles.

The doco is set to lead this year’s program on Wednesday, 3 June at the State Theatre, followed by a post-screening celebration at Sydney Town Hall.

Silenced: Elevating “voices that might otherwise go unheard”

Despite its title, Silenced is anything but quiet. The film is a loud and pressing documentary about how power and truth are often shifted in the eyes of courts, with legal systems deciding whose voices carry real weight.

Focusing on how defamation law is being increasingly weaponised to silence survivors and the journalists who report on their cases, the documentary follows international human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson.

As Robinson unravels how legal systems repeatedly suppress women’s voices, the film makes its central point clear. Inspired by the lawyer’s book, How Many More Women?, co-authored with Dr Keio Yoshida, the film pulls audiences into the charged courtrooms, chaotic media storms, and the emotional fallout that follows when women speak publicly about abuse.

Miles puts it simply, “The opportunity to play at the State Theatre as the opening night film for Sydney Film Festival is a dream come true, and a testament to the power of storytelling to elevate voices that might otherwise go unheard.” 

At the heart of the documentary are three women whose stories caused international debate.

Brittany Higgins, a survivor and advocate against gendered violence, whose allegations that she was sexually assaulted by Bruce Lehrmann inside Parliament House in 2019 sparked a national conversation on accountability and gendered violence. But the significance of that moment was followed by years of legal battles, not only causing severe financial consequences for Higgins, but also intense public scrutiny. Her case is a prime example of how institutions and the legal system can turn their back on, and even punish, survivors of gendered violence.

Catalina Ruiz‑Navarro, a Colombian journalist and co‑founder of feminist outlet Volcánicas, published an investigation regarding allegations against a rising film director, but was then met with a prolonged defamation lawsuit. Though she ultimately won, her case highlights how legal action is frequently used not to argue the truth, but to exhaust and intimidate women from speaking publicly.

And then there’s Amber Heard, a name who many will recognise and was represented by Robinson in the U.K. case. Her defamation battle against Johnny Depp became one of the most globally watched legal cases of the decade, with her facing relentless online harassment and misinformation being spread widely. By the end, what should have been a legal process had turned into a misogyny‑driven campaign against Heard’s character.

“Selina Miles has made a clear‑eyed and urgent work that challenges audiences to question the systems that decide whose voices are heard and whose are suppressed,” Festival Director Nashen Moodley states. 

Produced by Stranger Than Fiction, Silenced arrives with a message that feels impossible to ignore: who are our legal systems actually designed to protect?

Silenced will premiere as a part of the Sydney Film Festival on 3 June at the State Theatre.