But three hits in the past six months – The Water Diviner, Paper Planes and Mad Max: Fury Road – have raised expectations for a batch of lively local films having their world premieres at the Sydney Film Festival.

Five Australian features – four based on acclaimed plays and a fifth that was formerly an art installation – will make their debut at the 62nd festival.

It opens on Wednesday with one of these stage-to-screen adaptations – director Brendan Cowell's comedic Ruben Guthrie, based on his own play about a high-flying advertising executive (played by Patrick Brammall) who has to give up drinking for a year to fix his life.

Three other theatre identities are introducing films that also have real potential to succeed – at least with art-house audiences.

Director Simon Stone has adapted his acclaimed play The Wild Duck for The Daughter, a drama about two interweaved families that stars Geoffrey Rush, Miranda Otto, Sam Neill, Ewen Leslie and American Paul Schneider. It makes its debut on Thursday in the festival's $62,000 competition for "courageous, audacious and cutting-edge" cinema.

Jeremy Sims' Last Cab To Darwin, adapted from Reg Cribb's play of the same name, has Michael Caton as a taxi driver heading from Broken Hill to Darwin to die with dignity and Jacki Weaver as a doctor. It screens as a special presentation on Saturday.

And with his first film since 2006's Candy, Neil Armfield returns to cinema with Holding The Man, a gay romance adapted from Tommy Murphy's play of the same name, starring Ryan Corr and Craig Stott. It screens on closing night.

"A highlight of this festival is the range and number of Australian world premieres that we're going to present," says festival director Nashen Moodley. "It's such a strong year for Australian cinema."

Over 12 days, the festival will screen films from almost 70 countries in 11 venues.

As well as the traditional venues, including the State Theatre, Event Cinemas George Street and Dendy Opera Quays, it has screenings at Dendy Newtown, Casula Powerhouse, Cremorne Orpheum and, for a classic sci-fi double feature, the Skyline Drive-in in Blacktown.

Moodley says ticket sales have been strong enough to suggest the festival could break last year's record attendance of 156,000, although that will be helped by the expansion of venues.

He is looking forward to showing what he calls "the stranger or more challenging offerings" in the festival.

That includes Arabian Nights, a film almost 6½ hours long from Portuguese director Miguel Gomes that dramatises stories of life under Europe's austerity measures.

"I want to see how people react and whether they stay over the course of 6½ hours," says Moodley.

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

STRANGERLAND 

In Australian director Kim Farrant's debut film, Nicole Kidman and Joseph Fiennes play a couple whose teenaged children go missing.

ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL

An acclaimed American film from director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon about a teenager who makes a film for a girl with cancer.

TANGERINE

Sean Baker shot what's described as a wickedly funny film about transgender prostitutes in Los Angeles entirely on iPhones.

WOMEN HE'S UNDRESSED

Gillian Armstrong's documentary on Australian costume designer Orry-Kelly, who won three Oscars in the 1950s.

VICTORIA

A lively one-take German film from director Sebastian Schipper centring on a bank robbery in Berlin.

TEHRAN TAXI

An Iranian film shot in secret by a banned director Jafar Panahi, who also plays a cab driver.

SHERPA

Jennifer Peedom's Australian documentary on the risks that Sherpas take for climbers on Mount Everest.

GOING CLEAR: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE PRISON OF BELIEF

Alex Gibney's revealing documentary about abuse and control in the Church of Scientology.

THE HUNTING GROUND

Hard-hitting documentary from Kirby Dick on the epidemic of sexual assault in American colleges.