CLARE STEWART knew she was onto a winner during an energised night of urban sounds and vision at last year's Sydney Film Festival.

"I had someone ... coming out of the live hip-hop show saying, 'I've been coming to the festival for 51 years and this is a great festival,''' says Stewart, its director.

Broadening the festival's appeal to meet the changing desires of its audience was, she says, a central aim in introducing Sounds On Screen, now in its second year. The week-long program will show an array of music movies and, on some nights, complement them with DJs, a live band or even a drag show at George Street's Metro Theatre.

"What we found worked really well last year were those live elements that had a direct relationship to the film itself,'' Stewart says.

To enhance that symbiosis this time round, the festival teamed with the Metro again and had the theatre's Loren McHenry - previously the Hopetoun Hotel's booker - recruit local talent that, McHenry says, "would be best suited to go along with those movies'' and fit their themes.

Stewart relishes the idea of screening the films in what she calls a "cabaret-style environment''. "Much as I am a cinema purist in some respects, I've always been a fan of the notion of seeing a more social context for the viewing of films."

Several other music films feature in the wider program of the 55th Sydney Film Festival, which is screening 220 movies all up. Stewart is chuffed the festival will hold its first international film competition this year. "[It is] huge and is going to make a real change to the face of the festival.

"There's a wealth of Australian films. There's some very strong documentaries as well as an incredibly rich world cinema program. I think our focus on Mexico is completely stunning.''

Vying for top billing at Sounds On Screen is Anvil! The Story of Anvil, on a metal group "that's been around for donkey's years and are still playing to 10 people'', McHenry says. "It's a documentary,'' Stewart says, "but it plays like a mockumentary. It's kind of a real Spinal Tap.'' DJ Sultan of Sin will spin before and after.

McHenry's favourite is the "massive'' soul revue night, with DJs and a gig by groove merchants Johnny G & the E-Types, built around the doco Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and focused on the Memphis label that produced the likes of Otis Redding and Booker T & the MGs.

Among other highlights are the premiere of a new doco in the Great Australian Albums series on the making of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Murder Ballads and, on a bill with a DJ and a drag show by Trash Vaudeville, the film Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, about the late New York disco artist and gay luminary.

The festival's closing night gala has a screening of a 1926 silent film at the State Theatre with live accompani-ment from composer Phillip Johnston with the Necks' Chris Abrahams and Lloyd Swanton plus Daryl Pratt.

The Sydney Film Festival is at city venues from June 4 to 22.
Sounds On Screen begins on June 15. 
www.sydneyfilmfestival.org.