Here's Time Out's full coverage of Melbourne International Film Festival – from MIFF highlights to giveaways.
A big chunk of the program of this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival has been announced. Tickets go on sale on June 8, so start planning your MIFF now with 21 of the film highlights you can expect when the event kicks off on July 28.
1. Bad Girl
Everyone loves a bad-girl movie – this Australian thriller promises a twist on the femme fatale theme with two 17-year-olds (Samara Weaving and Sarah West) forming a dangerous friendship.
2. Certain Women
The new movie from director Kelly Reichardt (Meek’s Cutoff, Night Moves, Wendy and Lucy) and her muse, actor Michelle Williams, is an acclaimed three-part film about three women in crisis (Williams, Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart).
3. Chevalier
London Film Festival’s surreal Best Film award winner Chevalier is the latest film from Athina Rachel Tsangari (Attenberg). Six wealthy men on a fishing trip kill time when their boat breaks down – their games are hilarious and deeply disturbing.
4. The Death and Life of Otto Bloom
The opening-night gala offers a twist on Slaughterhouse-5 and Benjamin Button from neophyte director Cris Jones. Xavier Samuel stars as a man who experiences time backwards – he remembers the future, but the past is a mystery.
5. Down Under
The funny side of racism gets a fearless airing in Abe Forsythe’s provocative, daring comedy set during the aftermath of Sydney’s 2005 Cronulla riots.
6. Ella
Ella Havelka made history in 2013 when she became the first indigenous dancer in the Australian Ballet. The documentary makes its world premiere at MIFF.
7. Emo (The Musical)
A critically acclaimed Australian short film about a Romeo and Juliet love affair between a Christian and a Goth at high school has been adapted into a feature with a strong dash of Glee.
8. The Family
An investigation into one of Australia’s most notorious cults, founded in 1961, this documentary on ‘The Great White Brotherhood’ is reportedly incendiary, heartbreaking viewing.
9. Fire at Sea
Winner of multiple awards at the Berlin Film Festival, Italian documentary Fire at Sea covers the European refugee crisis as it impacted upon the Italian island of Lampedusa.
10. Girl, Asleep
Based on Matthew Whittet’s play, Girl Asleep is a wildly imaginative coming-of-age story set in the 1970s. A 14-year-old girl (Bethany Whitmore) suffers the birthday party from hell and descends into a rabbit hole of surreal events.
11. High-Rise
From the director of Kill List comes an adaptation of JG Ballard’s sci-fi novel concerning an apartment tower which descends into tribal anarchy – an allegory for the class system with echoes of A Clockwork Orange.
12. Indignation
Screenwriter James Shamus, famous for his scripts for Ang Lee’s films, makes his directing debut with an adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel about a student from New Jersey who clashes with the dean of his college.
13. Kate Plays Christine
Florida news reporter Christine Chubbuck, 29, made history in 1974 by committing suicide live on air. This experimental documentary follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil as she prepares to play Chubbuck. Lifeline: 131 114
14. Life, Animated
A Sundance prize-winning documentary concerns an autistic boy who is only able to communicate through his own private language consisting of the dialogue, songs and characters of Disney movies.
15. Louis Theroux: My Scientology Movie
Serial provocateur Theroux couldn’t get permission from the Church of Scientology to make a documentary about them (oddly enough) so he instead cast young actors in re-enactments of notorious incidents witnessed by former Scientologists.
16. Men & Chicken
Madds Mikkelsen, as you’ve never seen him before, stars in an offbeat Danish sci-fi comedy about brothers uncovering bizarre secrets about their parentage.
17. Monsieur Mayonnaise
Veteran Aussie director Philippe Mora co-directs the incredible story of how his family survived the Holocaust in a doco featuring Nazis, mayo sandwiches and a hand-painted comic book.
18. Tickled
The strange world of competitive endurance tickling is under the spotlight in a Kiwi documentary that takes a surprisingly dark turn.
19. A War
In this Danish Oscar-nominated war drama from the director of A Hijacking, a company commander (Borgen’s Pilou Asbaek) makes a fateful decision in Afghanistan that has a shattering impact on his family.
20. Weiner
Weiner is a doco about former congressman Anthony Weiner and the sexting scandals that brought his New York mayoral campaign to an ignominious end. It won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance in January.
21. Zero Days
Oscar-winning documentary superstar Alex Gibney turns his attention to state-sponsored cyber warfare. The implications of malware that can disrupt nuclear power plants or banking systems are all too apparent and terrifying.
Stay tuned for more coverage of the Melbourne International Film Festival.