Festival director Nashen Moodley will screen director Alex Gibney's Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, which has just screened on American television after attack ads from the church that called it "bigoted propaganda", and Kirby Dick's The Hunting Ground, which tells the stories of sexual assault survivors whose cases were covered up by their schools.

The first titles to be announced for the festival, which runs from June 3 to 14, include the Australian thriller Strangerland, which stars Nicole Kidman and Joseph Fiennes as parents whose two teenage children disappear in the outback.

Directed by debutant Kim Farrant and also starring Hugo Weaving as a country cop, it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

"It's wonderful to see Nicole Kidman in an independent Australian film," Moodley says. "Her performance is very, very brave."

Also screening is Mr Holmes, which has Ian McKellen as a retired Sherlock Holmes taking on one last case at the age of 93, and Slow West, a western starring Michael Fassbender, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Ben Mendelsohn.

Directed by newcomer John Maclean and produced by Oscar-winner Emile Sherman, it is described as "very darkly funny".

Critic David Stratton will introduce a retrospective of 10 "essential" films by the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, a program of music films includes Love & Mercy, a bio-pic that stars Paul Dano then John Cusack as Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson and a strand of family films include the Oscar-nominated Irish animation Song of the Sea.

Also screening is the Indian psychological drama Sunrise, made by a director, Partho Sen-Gupta, who lives in Newtown in Sydney's inner west.

As well as the familiar venues, including the State Theatre, Event Cinemas George Street, Dendy Opera Quays and Cremorne Orpheum, the festival will return to the Skyline Drive-in at Blacktown and expand to Dendy Newtown and the Casula Powerhouse.

In what he calls a strong year for documentaries, Moodley describes Going Clear as a meticulously researched and shocking film.

"You're going to discover a great deal about the Scientology movement and its dependence on its tax-free status and particularly Hollywood stars for the very positive position it finds itself in, particularly financially," he says.

The Hunting Ground, which has created a stir in the US since premiering at Sundance, shows that many colleges are more concerned about their reputations than dealing with sexual assault cases.

"It's a film that makes you really furious," Moodley says. "The number of young women who are sexually assaulted on American campuses is phenomenal.

"You find that so few of the cases are reported in the first instance. And when they are, they're treated really trivially by the universities."

Moodley will announce the full program on May 6.

While he has chosen an opening night film, he is not ready to announce it. The only clue is the film is not finished yet.

"I think they'll finish in time," he says. "We're assured they will."