Beastie BoysSummersault was a music festival that travelled across Australia in the summer of 1995/1996 with an epic line-up of international talent.
And now, the event will be spotlighted in a documentary called The Best Summer, premiering in Australia for the first time at the Sydney Film Festival this June.
With a line-up featuring Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Beck, Pavement, Rancid, Jawbreaker, Bikini Kill, and others, plus local acts Jebediah and Gerling, reviews were positive, but unfortunately, the event never returned.
To find out more about the behind-the-scenes stories behind Summersault and its competition with Big Day Out, revisit Steve Bell’s feature on The Music.
The Best Summer originally premiered at the renowned Sundance Film Festival. Featuring archival footage from the one-off concert tour, from the performances to the backstage moments, the official synopsis details the documentary as follows:
An infectiously fun tour diary, The Best Summer unearths a treasure trove of never-before-seen footage from one of the most stacked festival lineups ever to grace Australian shores. Dusting off tapes recovered from her garage while fleeing the recent Malibu fires, director Tamra Davis (Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, SFF 2010; Billy Madison) pieces together an electric time capsule of ’90s alternative music legends at the peak of their youthful powers.
Featuring candid, frequently hilarious interviews with the likes of Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Kim Deal, Beck, Dave Grohl and Kathleen Hanna, alongside raucous on-stage antics, it’s an all-access pass to a momentous moment in Australian music history.
Check out the trailer below.
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Music films don’t end there. In the documentary Broken English, Tilda Swinton and George MacKay pay tribute to singer and actor Marianne Faithfull, while Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum’s life is depicted in the film El Sett, and singer and producer Charli xcx delivers a raw performance in the drama Erupcja.
The 2026 Sydney Film Festival will take place from Wednesday, 3 to Sunday, 14 June. Only a sneak peek of films and documentaries has been announced today, with the full 200-plus program to be unveiled on Wednesday, 6 May. You can explore this year’s program here.
Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley said of this year’s programming, “Prize winners from Berlinale and Sundance, an immersive World Premiere from Australia, Isabelle Huppert as a vampire who’s as fabulous as they come, and more – we wanted to offer a glimpse of the distinctive voices from across the globe coming to SFF.”
Australian films lead today’s announcement. Silenced examines defamation law following the cases of Brittany Higgins and Amber Heard, while The Valley captures life in Kangaroo Valley.
In terms of international films, the Bill Skarsgård and Al Pacino-starring Dead Man’s Wire features at this year’s festival alongside Silent Friend – winner at the Venice Film Festival – Yellow Letters, Filipiñana, and more.
