The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) returns this August, with a programme featuring the debuts of 11 Premiere Fund films, the first Australian film in Cannes Competition in a decade, and titles from Berlin, Venice and Sundance Film Festivals.
The 2020 iteration of MIFF, which was online only, drew in the largest audience in the festival’s history. The innovations of this year’s event will give films their largest platform ever. It’s a hybrid of digital and cinema screenings.
MIFF’s Opening Night Gala features the Australian premiere of Leah Purcell’s ‘The Drover’s Wife The Legend Of Molly Johnson’, speaking to the past and present realities of racial injustice.
“Leah Purcell’s monumental ‘The Drover’s Wife The Legend Of Molly Johnson’ will not just open MIFF this year – it will kick the doors in,” MIFF Artistic Director Al Cossar says.
“This is a film made for MIFF’s return to cinema – an outback western of grand vision; a resonant, revisionist force of filmmaking that has much to say about our country then, and who we are now. The film will lead a slate of extraordinary Australian storytellers – emerging, established, revered – who give momentum and meaning to the core of MIFF this year.”
The MIFF Premiere Fund’s 2021 features 11 films, its largest collection of films yet. Five of them have been directed by alumni of emerging director initiative MIFF Accelerator Lab. These films feature such names as Courtney Barnett, Essie Davis, Judy Davis, Stephen Fry, Elton John, Caleb Landry Jones, Sir Ian McKellan and Hugo Weaving.
‘Nitram’ is the first Australian film in Cannes Competition in a decade, from MIFF Accelerator Lab alumnus director Justin Kurzel. It’s a narrative portrait of the troubled man behind one of the darkest chapters in modern Australian history.
Touching on the themes of mental health and identity are two films exploring the highs and lows of artistic endeavour in the music industry. Courtney Barnett pulls back the curtain in ‘Anonymous Club’ looking at life on road, directed by Danny Cohen; while Australian rock band The Triffids and the triumph and ultimate tragedy of frontman David McComb are the focus of ‘Love In Bright Landscapes’ from director Jonathan Alley.
'Quo Vadis, Aida?'
‘Lone Wolf’ is an inventive political thriller and features a star-studded Australian cast including Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Chris Bunton, Stephen Curry and Hugo Weaving. It’s co-produced by Accelerator Lab alumnus Mat Govoni and directed by Jonathan Ogilvie.
Real-life activism is the focus of ‘Hating Peter Tatchell’, a portrait of the revered and notorious Melbourne-born human rights activist and agitator extraordinaire who fought for equality. It’s the feature directorial debut from Christopher Amos, executive produced by Elton John and featuring Sir Ian McKellen and Stephen Fry.
Films such as ‘Araatika: Rise Up’ from Larissa Behrendt, ‘Streamline’ from Tyson Wade Johnstone, ‘Wash My Soul In The River’s Flow’ from first-time director Philippa Bateman and ‘Geeta’ from award-winning social justice filmmaker Emma Macey-Storch make up some of this year’s Australian highlights.
Meanwhile, overseas, ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ Is the new film from Jasmila Žbanić portraying a UN translator torn between duty and saving her family in 1990s Bosnia. It’s an Oscar-nominated film (Best International Feature Film).
Other international films to look out for are ‘Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy’ from Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, ‘City Hall’ from Andrei Konchalovsky, ‘Zola’ starring Taylour Paige and Riley Keough, ‘Helmut Newton: The Bad And The Beautiful’ from documentarian Gero von Boehm, ‘We Are The Thousand’ from director Anita Rivaroli and more.
MIFF’s much-loved night of sound and cinema, ‘Hear My Eyes’, is returning in 2021, with Two Hands x The Murlocs. It’s playing at Astor Theatre at the beginning of the festival.
The full programme will drop on 13 July.
First Films For MIFF 2021
Ablaze (Australia)Anonymous Club (Australia)
Araatika: Rise Up! (Australia)
Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution (Australia, Italy)
City Hall (USA)
Dear Comrades! (Russia)
El Planeta (Spain)
Geeta (Australia)
Hating Peter Tatchell (Australia)
Hear My Eyes: Two Hands x The Murlocs (Australia)
Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (Germany)
Hopper/Welles (USA)
Little Tornadoes (Australia)
Lone Wolf (Australia)
Love in Bright Landscapes (Australia)
Nitram (Australia)
Off Country (Australia)
Palazzo Di Cozzo (Australia)
Paper City (Australia)
Petit Maman (France)
Quo Vadis, Aida? (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, France, Norway, Turkey)
Radiance (Australia)
Sisters With Transistors (UK, France)
Streamline (Australia)
The Drover’s Wife The Legend Of Molly Johnson (Australia)
The Human Voice (Spain)
Uluru and the Magician (Australia)
Vacant Possession (Australia)
Wash My Soul in the River’s Flow (Australia)
We Are the Thousand (Italy)
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Japan)
Zola (USA)
Melbourne International Film Festival runs from 5-22 August.
