NFSA Restores: Sweetie – Sweetie's return

Title:
NFSA Restores: Sweetie – Sweetie's return
NFSA ID
1821666
Year
1989
Access fees

The NFSA restoration of Sweetie premieres at the Melbourne International Film Festival on 23 August 2025. 

Jane Campion’s strange, painful, funny, uncompromising debut feature has split audiences since its 1989 release. Genevieve Lemon was cast in the title role after Campion saw her acting the part of a child in a stage play, and the unconstrained childlikeness of Sweetie makes her savage, unpredictable and absurd performance land. Thirty-five years after the film’s release, a more trauma-informed audience may find different ways into the character.  

The NFSA restored the film in partnership with Spectrum Films, and consulted with Campion, cinematographer Sally Bongers and the producer John Maynard to ensure that Sweetie’s return to the big screen is as textured, colourful and distinctive as the film’s original release. 

Read more about Sweetie and the restoration process

In this clip, Kay (Karen Colston) and her boyfriend Louis (Tom Lycos) arrive home to find their house broken into. Dawn, aka 'Sweetie’ (Geneviève Lemon), Kay’s sister, has arrived with her 'producer’, a junkie named Bob (Michael Lake). In the morning, Sweetie gets to know the neighbour’s eccentric little boy Clayton (Andre Pataczek). Summary by Paul Byrnes.