The ten best films to see at MIFF this year

Sydneysider Hyun Lee’s microbudget debut feature, French Girls, draws on a decade of working in the fashion industry, starting when she was still in high school, to spin the tale of an unsuspecting construction worker, Mia (artist Mia Kidis), who gets scouted for model work. Enjoying the money, if not so much the gig, Mia soon finds that her life’s background messes are also ready for their close-up in this quirky and occasionally confronting dramedy that also features Nash Edgerton and Bump star Christian Byers.

If you think spilling coffee down your ‘fit first thing in the morning is the worst start to your day possible, prepare for whiplash as you plunge headlong into MIFF Accelerator Lab alum Maddelin McKenna’s frenetic debut feature, Mad Rush. A 75-minute thriller shot on-the-run around Melbourne's CBD, it stars Senuri Chandrani as Madisha, a Gen-Z drifter whose life falls apart when a scammer demands she withdraw her scant cozzie lives crisis-depleted savings and sets her on a madcap mission to put things right.

With a hint of Almost Famous about it, I Like Movies director Chandler Levack’s semi-autobiographical feature Mile End Kicks casts Euphoria star Barbie Ferreira as Grace, a 20-something Montreal-based music critic in an industry that isn’t renowned for respecting young women’s perspectives. Grace dreams of writing a book about Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill, but gets caught up in the party life, falling for the frontman of a local band, Bone Patrol, in this millennial daze of a rom-com.

Impressing on stage in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and killing it in Deadloch, Melbourne actor Harvey Zielinski embraces the director’s chair with debut feature, Sweet Milk Lake. He also stars as Jake, an unemployed trans man who heads to the country town he left years back to make amends with his estranged dad (Kieran Darcy-Smith). When the older man mistakes him for his cis twin bro, Sam, the unexpected code-shift leads to romance with Reckless star Hunter Page-Lochard’s fellow outsider, Toby.

The Perfect Couple star Dakota Fanning’s Wendy is besotted with her older boyfriend, Jake Johnson’s divorcee, Jack, in The Sun Never Sets, the long-awaited return from Drinking Buddies filmmaker Joe Swanberg. But she wants kids, while he’s happy with the two he has. So Jack hits on an idea anyone who mainlined Friends would advise against: a six-month break in the Alaskan summer to figure out where they’re at. Cue Wendy’s toxic ex, Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), showing up. What could possibly go wrong?

Break the chains to your sofa this winter and head to MIFF documentary highlight Tina Arena: Unravel Me, an intimately drawn portrait of the Italian-Australian pop star and ‘Sorrento Moon’ singer from Wonnarua filmmaker Adrian Russell Wills (Black Divaz). Exposing the bullying she has endured along the way from Young Talent Time to achieving international stardom, the film also calls on some of her high-profile besties, including Celine Dion, Katy Perry and Lionel Ritchie, to share their insights.

Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week sidebar and taking home the Queer Palm Revelation award for French writer-director Pierre Le Gall, his tender debut feature Flesh and Fuel hits the road in an 18-wheeler. Étienne (Alexis Manenti) lives and breathes his punishing delivery truck gig, only making time to video-call his beloved niece and cruise gay beats along the way. But when Polish counterpart Bartosz (Julian Świeżewski) saves him from a cop bust, something deeper unfurls despite the logistical challenges. 

Glow’s Gayle Rankin stars alongside Outlander’s Grant O’Rourke as a pair of semi-feral siblings sequestered away on a remote Scottish island in writer-director Louis Paxton’s delightful oddity, The Incomer. Talking with birds and strange sea creatures while conducting bizarre ceremonies, they’ve no interest in the mainland their late parents warned them was terrifyingly dangerous. Then Ex Machina’s Domhnall Gleeson turns up as a jobsworth council-type to reintegrate them, sparking a surreal love-in.

You might be nervous that Rwandan filmmaker Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo’s debut feature, Ben’Imana, focusing on a support group for women dealing with the country’s genocide, might be too full on. It’s a great credit to the writer-director that, instead, it’s an empowering ode not only to survival, but also to embracing hope in the darkest of places. Charged by mighty matriarchal performances from Clémentine U Nyirinkindi and Isabelle Kabano, as sisters clashing over restorative justice, it’s unforgettable.

If you adored the inter-gay-lactic adventure of Lesbian Space Princess, then blast off with the equally saucy animated mayhem of Jim Queen’s homo-apocalypse. Nerdy virgin Lucien (voiced by Jérémy Gillet) sneaks into a club after dark to be near his OnlyFantasy, the roided-up Adonis, Jim (Alex Ramirès). But when the latter is struck low by the rampaging Heterosis virus, devastating the community with straight-laced taste, the former must resist his right-wing mum to save the day in this outrageously fun comedy.