When the virtual curtain comes down on MIFF 68½ on Sunday night it will mark the end of the most attended Melbourne International Film Festival ever, organisers say.
The festival has registered over 205,000 streams, which means the estimated overall audience has exceeded 300,000 for the first two weeks of the 17-day event.
“Despite the complexity and challenges of wholly reinventing the Southern Hemisphere's largest film festival, it is heartening to see the simple, resilient truth here: that stories, whether viewed on a big screen or in your living room, still connect and compel us, perhaps more than ever,” said festival director Al Cossar.
Audiences had been predominantly Victorian but 20 per cent tuned in from outside the state. The festival's free content, which represented 36 per cent of the line-up, helped contribute to the overall big numbers. Box office expectations had also been surpassed, organisers said. The festival's other achievements include half of all films screened having a female director.
MIFF 68½ closes on Sunday night with a screening of Pablo Larrain's dance-themed drama Ema, which 3,000 viewers are predicted to watch.