MIFF Unveils Full Program – Tonight, the 73rd Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) unveiled an outstanding program of over 275 screen works and announced the 10 Bright Horizons films screening in competition and vying for MIFF’s flagship prize.
From 7-24 August, cinephiles across Melbourne, regional Victoria, and throughout the country online can explore a diverse program overflowing with features, shorts and XR experiences.
On and off the screen, MIFF 2025 connects deeper with festival-goers from showcasing the best new Australian filmmaking, beloved auteurs, alongside live-score cinema events in Julia Holter: The Passion of Joan of Arc,and Parasite Live in Concert with composer Jung Jae il, presented by Orchestra Victoria. This year’s program boasts a curated schedule of talks, panels, special events and no shortage of blockbusters – including the World Premiere of Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man and Ari Aster’s buzzy Eddington arriving hot from Cannes this MIFF.
Of tonight’s 2025 Program Launch event, Artistic Director, Al Cossar, said:
“MIFF returns to illuminate the dark depths of Melbourne winter with a globe-trotting array of exceptional cinema, incredible experiences, and the biggest festival celebration of Australian filmmaking on the planet. With over 275 films across 18 days in cinema, weekend regional expansions across Victoria, and a further week online available at your place, all around Australia, MIFF is an invitation to discover a world of film, and the world on film; to up-res your cinephile credentials, and to binge your way through an epic program brimming with imagination and ideas.”
Across the MIFF Awards presented by Penfolds,and accompanying MIFF Shorts Awards, the festival continues to celebrate cinematic excellence and talent with an awards suite of over $300,000 – one of the world’s most significant filmmaking prize pools. As chosen from the Bright Horizons Competition and supported by the Victorian Government through VicScreen, the festival’s top accolade – prestigious Bright Horizons Award – recognises first and second-time filmmakers with $140,000 making it the richest feature film prize in the Southern Hemisphere. Nominees of this year’s various other award categories will be announced later this month.
Minister for Creative Industries Colin Brooks, said:
“MIFF is a highlight of our winter cultural calendar, bringing together audiences across Melbourne and regional Victoria to see incredible local and international cinema. The Allan Labor Government is proud to support Australia’s largest film festival and the MIFF Bright Horizons Award, which alongside Victoria’s cutting-edge screen facilities, homegrown talent, world-class crew, and spectacular filming locations, cements Victoria’s status as a global screen powerhouse.”
Alongside many of the Bright Horizons directors and MIFF Jury attending this year’s event, festival-goers can expect a bevy of visiting creatives and stars in town as MIFF rolls out the red carpet for 18 days of world-class cinema events. Guests set to attend this year’s festival include Dacre Montgomery, Emily Browning, Sean Keenan, Mary Bronstein and Marlon Williams – with more names to be shared closer to opening.
Arriving as one of the most anticipated films of the festival calendar, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You by writer-director Mary Bronstein not only makes its Australian debut as MIFF’s Opening Night Gala feature film on Thursday 7 August, but also screens as a Bright Horizons Competition film.Devastatingly honest and a darkly comic vision of motherhood, Australia’s own Rose Byrne who leads a star cast was judged the best performance at this year’s Berlinale. The film also includes fearless appearances by Conan O’Brien, fellow Aussie Danielle Macdonald, Christian Slater and A$AP Rocky.
Returning for its second consecutive year, MIFF’s Premiere With Purpose gala, presented by DECJUBA, will screen Prime Minister by Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz. The documentary chronicles Jacinda Ardern‘s tenure as New Zealand PM, from navigating crises to redefining global leadership through her empathetic yet resolute approach. The Victorian Premiere will be celebrated with a special black-carpet event hosted at ACMI on Thursday 14 August.
The festival’s beloved Family Gala is back on Sunday 17 August presenting The Bad Guys 2 by Pierre Perifel and JP Sans, based on the list-topping children’s book seriesby Aussie actor-turned-author, Aaron Blabey. The kid-friendly Ocean’s Eleven meets Baby Driver takes its explosive action cues from Fast & Furious and Mission: Impossible. This bigger, badder sequel features an all-star cast including getaway driver Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell), grumpy safecracker Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), sensitive master of disguise Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), hacker Ms. ‘Webs’ Tarantula (Awkwafina), hot-tempered Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos), the return of Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayaode), and new character, Doom (Natasha Lyonne).
The MIFF Regional showcase will tour across the festival weekends of 15–17 and 22–24 August with venues in Bendigo, Ballarat, Castlemaine, Morwell, Geelong, Rosebud, Sale and Shepparton ready to screen some of this year’s much-loved titles, supported by VicScreen and Screen Australia. For cinema-lovers further afield, MIFF Online also returns from 15–31 August – one week after the festival wraps up – featuring a limited suite of festival films and free short films available on demand via ACMI’s dedicated online streaming platform, Cinema 3.
MIFF PREMIERE FUND
Previously announced, this year’s MIFF Premiere Fund presents seven new Australian features, including Kasimir Burgess‘ Iron Winter, which follows two young horse herders through the backdrop of East Asia’s breathtaking and forbidding Mongolian steppes; Lorin Clarke‘s intimate portrait of her father, the late-great funny man John Clarke, in But Also John Clarke;Kalu Oji‘s quintessential suburban Melbourne tale of life in a migrant community, Pasa Faho, starring Tyson Palmer and Okey Bakassi; Nicholas Clifford‘s Y2K tequila-fueled comedy, One More Shot, with Emily Browning, Sean Keenan, Ashley Zukerman, and Aisha Dee; Kristina Kraskov‘s observational documentary, Spreadsheet Champions, charting six young people in the world of competitive Excel; Sue Thomson‘s humorous and playful Careless, exploring Australia’s aged care crisis; and James J. Robinson‘s feature debut, First Light, a slow-burn crime drama exploring faith and corruption – which also screens as part of this year’s Bright Horizons Competition.
BRIGHT HORIZONS COMPETITION AND MIFF JURY
MIFF’s boundary-pushing Bright Horizons Competition slate features another year of Australian-premiering new works from 10 extraordinary directors on the ascent, including previously mentioned titles in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You by Mary Bronsteinand James J. Robinson’s First Light.
Joining the competition is The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo by director Diego Céspedes.This year’s Cannes Un Certain Regard prize-winner is set in a remote Chilean mining town in 1984 and follows 12-year-old Lidia as she navigates fear and prejudice when a mysterious illness threatens her queer family and community. The film brings a tender child’s-eye view to the AIDS crisis, with newcomer Tamara Cortés delivering a remarkable performance alongside Matías Catalán and Paula Dinamarca in this colourful modern western confronting bigotry with both rage and hope.
Urchin, an astonishing directorial debut from Babygirl star Harris Dickinson, marks a jaggedly heartbreaking portrait of addiction and survival on London’s streets. Dickinson cedes the spotlight to Frank Dillane (Harvest, MIFF 2025) in this raw and revelatory film about Mike, a homeless person in London struggling to break free from a cycle of self-destruction and turn his life around. Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize and Best Actor at Cannes Un Certain Regard, the film channels the spirit of British social realism for a new era.
Thai auteur Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke‘s enigmatic debut feature, A Useful Ghost, arrives in Australia, blurring the boundaries between the living and the spectral in contemporary Bangkok. In an absurd domestic satire, a recently deceased woman returns as a ghost inhabiting a vacuum cleaner, determined to safeguard her family and cleanse their home of malevolent spirits.
Hypnotic sound design and striking visuals propel Sound of Falling, German filmmaker Mascha Schilinski‘s assured debut exploring female desire and repression. Starring Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky and Susanne Wuest, viewers are plunged into a sensory journey through memory, trauma and awakening.Andrew Patterson (The Vast of Night) returns with the highly anticipated crime thriller The Rivals of Amziah King. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Kurt Russell, and Angelina LookingGlass, this film ratchets up the tension with small-town paranoia and conspiracy theories, transforming 1960s Oklahoma into a pressure cooker of suspicion and dread.
Presented by The Guardian, Colombian cinema finds a bold new voice in A Poet, Simón Mesa Soto‘s Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner for 2025. When a failed poet meets a talented young woman, their unlikely mentorship blooms into something both beautiful and dangerous. The central duo are brought to life through revelatory performances from Ubeimar Rios and Rebeca Andrade.
Uncompromising and unforgettable, April sees Georgian powerhouse Dea Kulumbegashvili (Beginning, MIFF 2021) return with a searing exploration of reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Venice, the meticulously crafted film confronts viewers with the brutal realities faced by women in a society that denies them agency over their own bodies.
Lastly, Chie Hayakawa‘s Renoir is a delicate and deeply personal exploration of familial loss that draws on the director’s own childhood. Set in 1980s Japan, this tender coming-of-age story follows an imaginative and perceptive 11-year-old girl as she navigates her father’s terminal illness, her mother’s mounting stress and the world of adults.
Competing for MIFF’s highest honour, the Bright Horizons Award, the recipient of the top prize will be chosen by a renowned Jury of local and international industry figures who will be deliberating and appearing at this year’s festival.
Writer-director and producer, Charlotte Wells, will serve as this year’s jury president, some three years after her celebrated debut feature, Aftersun (MIFF 2022), was selected for MIFF’s inaugural Bright Horizons Competition. Wells will oversee a distinguished panel of industry experts including Australian actress, writer and performer, Tamala; American filmmaker and actor Alex Ross Perry (Pavements; Videoheaven, MIFF2025); Greek filmmaker, writer and producer, Athina Rachel Tsangari (Harvest, MIFF 2025); IMDb founder and Executive Chairman, Col Needham; Vietnamese-Australian author and screenwriter, Nam Le; and Australian composer and musician Caitlin Yeo.
HEADLINERS
This year’s Headliners strand, presented by MINI, is where audiences will find an unmissable lineup of buzzy new films hot off the festival circuit and early access to compelling new works from some of the world’s most revered and buzzworthy international directors.
Announced as part of MIFF’s First Glance, film-buffs will be some of the first to see Palme d’Or winning It Was Just an Accident by Iranian master director Jafar Panahi; A24-backed dramedy Sorry, Baby by creative multihyphenate Eva Victor;and Richard Linklater’s A-list powered Blue Moon, a portrait of fallen stardom centred around Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart.
Also arriving fresh from Cannes, Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague – an affectionate recreation of the moment Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave changed forever – features as a Headliner, alongside Blue Moon, previously announced. Evoking the film and era alike in his black-and-white reproduction of turn-of-the-60s Paris, Linklater crafts a love letter to Godard’s genius and the movement that directly inspired his own radical and inventive work. Starring an extremely convincing Guillaume Marbeck as the legendary cineaste, Zoey Deutch as Seberg and dead-ringer newcomer Aubry Dullin as Belmondo.
Kristen Stewart’s splashy Cannes-premiering directorial debut in The Chronology of Water poetically adapts writer Lidia Yuknavitch’s visceral 2011 memoir. Eschewing unnecessary exposition, Stewart invites comparisons to Terrence Malick as she tells Lidia’s story in intense, elliptical vignettes that ebb and flow on currents of memory, while Imogen Poots (Vivarium, MIFF 2019) is as tender and fierce on screen as she is dreamlike and sardonic in voiceover.
Following a single mum and her two daughters as they navigate the margins of Taipei, Left-Handed Girl is the Cannes-awarded solo directorial debut of Shih-Ching Tsou who draws on her own memories of the quiet rebellions that emerge from the constraints of traditional family life. Comprising an ensemble cast of non-professional and experienced actors alike, the film was co-written and edited by long-time collaborator and indie darling, Sean Baker (Anora; Tangerine, MIFF 2015), with whom Tsou co-directed and co-wrote 2004’s Take Out, before going on to produce and appear in many of his films in the intervening two decades.
Film auteur Kelly Reichardt (First Cow, MIFF 2020) returns with The Mastermind, a characteristically patient and profound exploration of American masculinity. Josh O’Connor leads an exceptional ensemble including Alana Haim, John Magaro and Hope Davis in a feat that re-confirms Reichardt as one of contemporary cinema’s most essential voices.
In Sirat, director Oliver Laxe (Fire Will Come, MIFF 2019) crafts a haunting desert odyssey as a father (Sergi López) and son search for their missing daughter and sister, who vanished at a remote rave in southern Morocco. As they follow a trail of parties deeper into the wilderness, their journey becomes a powerful meditation on grief, connection and the limits of endurance.
Adapted from a Soviet Gulag survivor’s story, Two Prosecutors by Sergei Loznitsa is a bitingly topical, darkly absurdist legal drama that picked up the Prix François Chalais at Cannes this year. The Ukrainian filmmaker’s return to fiction is nothing short of a Kafkaesque fable that echoes loudly amid contemporary political corruption.
Divorce gets the screwball treatment in Splitsville, Michael Angelo Covino‘s raucous comedy starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona. When a couple’s amicable separation spirals wildly out of control, Covino (The Climb) delivers a narrative that mines modern relationship anxieties for both laughs and unexpected pathos.
Opening the Directors’ Fortnight section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, Enzo is a tender, queer coming-of-age drama about a privileged French teen who rejects his comfortable life to work alongside immigrant laborers, forming a deep connection with a Ukrainian worker named Vlad. As Enzo struggles with identity, class, and desire, his admiration for Vlad becomes something more profound. Directed by Robin Campillo after the passing of co-writer Laurent Cantet, the film delicately explores themes of alienation, masculinity, and emotional awakening.
Quietly surreal, The Love That Remains is an intimate dramedy about a separated Icelandic couple learning to co-parent while navigating lingering attachments and personal ambitions. As Magnus struggles to move on and Anna pursues her artistic dreams, their family adjusts to a new rhythm of life in the remote countryside. Shot on 35mm and infused with personal touches from writer, director and cinematographer Hlynur Pálmason (Godland, MIFF 2022), the film blends melancholy, absurdity, and warmth.
Scooping three awards at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival, The Blue Trail is a vibrant, surreal journey through a futuristic Brazil, where 77-year-old Tereza defies a system that treats aging as obsolescence by pursuing her dream of flying. Along the way, she encounters strange creatures, unlikely allies, and moments of unexpected wonder. Known for his penchant for vivid colour, director Gabriel Mascaro (Divine Love, MIFF 2019) once more brings his palette of saturated hues and surreal beauty to the screen in this visually rich and imaginative ode to dignity, resistance, and the enduring power of dreams.
INTERNATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
A powerful debut from Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi, The President’s Cake is a stirring tale of resilience under authoritarian rule. Set in 1990s Iraq, it follows 9-year-old Lamia, who is tasked with baking the President’s birthday cake despite increasing poverty and food shortages. Winner of the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award and the prestigious Caméra d’Or, the film offers a poignant child’s-eye view of life under Saddam Hussein, anchored by a breakout performance from Baneen Ahmad Nayyef and a moving turn by veteran Waheed Thabet Khreibat.
In Cactus Pears, rural India’s caste divisions erupt into violence in Rohan Parashuram Kanawade‘s searing exploration of forbidden desire. When lower-caste Anand falls for upper-caste Suman, their romance triggers a cascade of brutality exposing ugly truths beneath village tranquility. Featuring powerhouse performances from Bhushaan Manoj and Suraaj Suman, this Australian Premiere confronts centuries of prejudice with unflinching honesty.
Winner of the Cannes Prix Spécial, Resurrection is the third feature from Bi Gan (Long Day’s Journey Into Night, MIFF 2019) and a meditation on human and film history. The sweeping sensorial odyssey assembles myriad cinematic references – silent film, German expressionism, Andrei Tarkovsky, Alfred Hitchcock, Wong Kar-wai, Tsai Ming-liang – with the skill of both a master storyteller and a true cinephile.
In The Legend of Ochi, fantasy and coming-of-age come together in Isaiah Saxon‘s visually stunning debut featuring Helena Zengel, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson and Finn Wolfhard. When a young girl befriends a mythical creature, their bond challenges everything her isolated community believes about the world beyond their borders in this enchanting tale for dreamers of all ages.
Enigmatic and ethereal, The Ice Tower sees French auteur Lucile Hadžihalilović (Earwig, MIFF 2022) return with another haunting exploration of adolescence and transformation. Once again reuniting Hadžihalilović and Marion Cotillard,his Australian Premiere plunges viewers into a fractured fable as a young orphan becomes fixated by an actress starring in a film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen.
Norwegian novelist and filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud delivers his ambitious Sex trilogy with Dreams, Love, and Sex. Across three interconnected films exploring modern intimacy, Haugerud weaves a tapestry of desire, connection and vulnerability that confirms his status as one of Europe’s most insightful chroniclers of contemporary relationships.
In Heads or Tails?, Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis craft a sumptuous western that both lovingly adheres to and surrealistically subverts the touchpoints of the genre. Looking like he was born to play the role, John C. Reilly (Stars at Noon, MIFF 2022) is Buffalo Bill in this spectacularly beautiful Italian western that exposes the lies behind – and lines between – myth and history, shot on 35mm, 16mm and super-16mm.
Filmmaker and artist Amalia Ulman’s (El Planeta) Magic Farm is a deliciously twisted satire of wellness culture and late capitalism that follows a too-hip media company on a clueless quest in Argentina. The bungling crew features Chloë Sevigny as an irate presenter, Alex Wolff as a bratty producer, newcomer Joe Apollonioas an amorous sound guy and Simon Rex as a higher-up with better things to do.
Exit 8, the directorial debut from producer Genki Kawamura, makes its Australian Premiere this MIFF, offering a mind-bending journey into regret and redemption. The video game adaptation is an existential puzzle box that sees a salaryman caught in an endless Tokyo subway station, with each time loop presenting a new opportunity to confront the decisions that led him to this predicament.
Americana gets a lyrical makeover in Rebuilding, Max Walker-Silverman‘s tender portrait of rural resilience that follows a small Colorado town’s efforts to resurrect their community after economic collapse. In this heart-wrenching rural drama, Josh O’Connor plays a rancher rising from the ashes of a wildfire that destroys his home. Seeking lodging, he ends up in a FEMA campsite–a stone’s throw from where his nine-year-old daughter (played by young Australian actor Lily LaTorre (Runt, MIFF 2024), now lives with his ex-wife (Meghann Fahy).
Peter Hujar’s Day is an emotional tribute to the legendary photographer with Ben Wishaw in the title role under the direction of his regular creative collaborator, Ira Sachs (Love Is Strange, MIFF 2014; Passages, MIFF 2023). Merging intimacy and art history, Sachs crafts a sensual exploration of queer legacy and the images that outlive us, blending archival footage with contemporary meditation.
DOCUMENTARY HIGHLIGHTS
Following rave reviews at Venice and Toronto, love triangles get a radical intervention in Mistress Dispeller, Elizabeth Lo‘s extraordinary peek behind the curtain of China’s booming “love industry”. With unprecedented access to all parties involved, this intimate portrait of modern love reveals the surprising profession of “mistress dispellers”, the professionals hired by the faithful party to go undercover and infiltrate and break-up their cheating partner’s affair.
Igor Bezinović’s explosive chronicle of a forgotten revolution, Fiume o morte!, sees Croatian punk spirit meet political fury. This archival treasure trove of rebellion shows how, when Italian fascists seized the city of Fiume in 1919, they inadvertently sparked an anarchist uprising that prefigured punk by half a century.
Iranian cinema’s tradition of finding light in darkness continues with Cutting Through Rocks, Mohammadreza Eyni‘s poetic exploration of art under oppression. Following sculptors who literally carve beauty from stone, this metaphor-rich documentary celebrates creativity’s power to transcend even the harshest conditions.
Göran Hugo Olsson meticulously excavates how television shaped perceptions of conflict in Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989. This forensic treatment of media bias dissects three decades of coverage to reveal how framing and editing can transform the same events into radically different narratives.
Sadie Frost‘s intimate portrait of the face that launched the Swinging Sixties, Twiggy, explores the life and times of the fashion icon and cultural gamechanger. Going beyond the pixie cut and doe eyes, the film reveals Lesley Lawson (Twiggy) as a savvy businesswoman who transformed modeling from mannequin work into true performance art.
True crime gets meta in Zodiac Killer Project, Charlie Shackleton‘s ingenious deconstruction of our obsession with unsolved mysteries. This Victorian Premiere turns the camera on the cottage industry of Zodiac theorists, asking what our fascination with serial killers says about us.
Sepideh Farsi’s Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is an inspiring portrait of Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona, who documented life in Gaza through defiant images. Pieced together from video calls between Hassona and the Iranian filmmaker, the film captures the everyday plight and suffering being inflicted upon her people. Tragically, the day after the film’s Cannes premiere announcement, Hassona and her family were killed by an alleged targeted Israeli missile strike. This powerful documentary serves as a tribute to Hassona’s memory and demands to be witnessed.
Surveillance culture reaches its apotheosis in The Perfect Neighbor by Geeta Gandbhir, a chilling exploration of smart home technology gone wrong that reveals how devices designed for our convenience can become tools of control, turning the promise of connection into a nightmare of exposure.
Presented by Letterboxd, filmmaker and actor Alex Ross Perry’s decade-in-the-making essay movie, Videoheaven, narrated by Maya Hawke, surveys the cultural impact of video stores via their representation on film and TV. Perry (Pavements, MIFF 2025), who appears this MIFF as part of this year’s Festival Jury undertakes a deep dive into video stores, having himself worked behind the counter of legendary New York establishment Kim’s Video. This evocative and rivetingly encyclopaedic seven-part treatise on the video-rental era is pure catnip for cinephiles.
Acclaimed cinematic essayist Alexandre O. Philippe (Lynch/Oz, MIFF 2022) returns to MIFF with Chain Reactions –winner of the Best Documentary on Cinema prize at Venice – which revs up and rips into one of the greatest slasher movies ever made: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Released to commemorate the film’s 50th anniversary, Philippe’s documentary features commentary from five of its most passionate devotees – comedian Patton Oswalt, director Karyn Kusama, J-horror maestro Takashi Miike, novelist Stephen King, and beloved Melbourne film critic and renowned Melbourne author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.
The Librarians is a rousing documentary on the US war on books, following passionate bibliophiles fighting censorship. As US democracy faces threats, librarians – the ordinary people serving communities through legislative activism and action groups – are the only ones standing in the way. Documentarian Kim A. Snyder (Newtown, MIFF 2016) examines the pervasive book bans, highlighting how these attacks on fundamental rights have changed, and how the fight against them must evolve.
1000 Women in Horror by US director Donna Davies reveals how the nightmares that have haunted our screens for well over a century have been sculpted and embodied by women, with many of those artists unrecognised. From the silent era until today,Davies’ World Premiering documentaryduly obliterates this historical oversight and features interviews with powerhouse women in the horror scene, and assembles a bevy of clips from classic and little-known films that women have left their mark on. Inspired by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’ award-winning and encyclopaedic book of the same name, who also features as a talking head, the film offers insights into the gender politics often explored through the genre, and on and off the screen.
AUSTRALIAN HIGHLIGHTS
Presented by The Saturday Paper, The Golden Spurtle stirs up Scotland’s competitive spirit with Constantine Costi‘s delightful dive into the world championship of porridge making. Kitchen amateurs and aficionados from across the globe gather to vie for the title of World Porridge Making Champion, armed with only water, salt and oats. The contenders – including a Sydney taco chef, a wellness CEO, a young hopeful with grandma’s recipe and two ex-champs – build on a legacy that has grown since the prize’s founding in 1994.
Presented by Rydges Melbourne, the World Premiering Signorinella: Little Miss follows the unsung contributions of Italian migrant women who take centre stage in this new documentary from Shannon Swan, one of the directors of Lygon Street – Si Parla Italiano (MIFF 2013). Twelve years after delighting MIFF audiences with his and Angelo Pricolo’s previous celebration of Italian migrant culture, Swan has returned with this charming film that focuses on the tenacity and spirit of Italian-Australian women through its wonderful cast of pioneering politicians, designers, chefs and farmers and sublime archival footage of 20th-century Melbourne.
YouTube culture hits the big screen in Never Get Busted!, David Anthony Ngo‘s wild ride through the career of an ex-cop turned cannabis advocate. This Australian Premiere follows Barry Cooper’s transformation from drug warrior to YouTube sensation teaching viewers how to outsmart the police he once served alongside.
Presented by The Monthly, Yurlu | Country is a vivid ode to Country and an intimate, inspiring portrait of a Banjima Elder Maitland Parker’s fight to reclaim his asbestos-tainted homeland. Directed by two-time UN Media Peace Award and five-time Walkley Award winner Yaara Bou Melhem, who worked closely with Parker and his family, this powerful documentary bears witness to Australia’s very own – albeit largely unknown – Chernobyl-style disaster.
Queer comedy reaches cosmic heights in Lesbian Space Princess, Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese‘s intergalactic romp. When an alien princess crash-lands in suburban Melbourne, she discovers Earth’s lesbians are even more confusing than her home planet’s three-gendered mating rituals. Featuring an all-star cast voiced by Shabana Azeez, Gemma Chua-Tran, Richard Roxburgh and Aunty Donna, this crowd-pleaser proves love truly is universal.
Birthright, Zoe Pepper‘s razor-sharp debut is a pitch-black comedy exposing dark secrets in the Perth Hills, presented by Time Out. Delving into themes of generational wealth and millennial desperation, the story unfolds as Cory, suddenly unemployed and newly evicted, must move back into his childhood home with his retiree parents and heavily pregnant wife. What starts as a temporary stay quickly escalates into psychological warfare, with Travis Jeffery and Maria Angelico clashing against Michael Hurst and Linda Cropper.
Grief takes otherworldly forms in Went Up The Hill, Samuel Van Grinsven‘s haunting sophomore feature starring Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) and Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread). Delivering mesmerising performances as strangers drawn together by loss in the Aotearoa wilderness, the line between healing and haunting blurs with each passing night.
For Zak Hilditch‘s latest exercise in dread, found footage horror is localised in We Bury the Dead starring Daisy Ridley and Mark Coles Smith. When a film crew documents a remote community’s bizarre burial rituals, they uncover secrets that should have stayed underground, fastly confirming Hilditch as one of Australia’s masters of atmospheric terror.
In Alphabet Lane, an isolated couple reinvigorate their relationship with parallel imaginary correspondences in James Litchfield’s first-time directorial feature starring Tilda Cobham-Hervey (Lone Wolf, MIFF 2021) and Nicholas Denton (Dangerous Liaisons). With much of the film shot on a family cattle farm in the Monaro region of New South Wales, Litchfield draws on his strong affinity for the landscape and a pointed sense of place for this exploration of the private universes lovers create for themselves.
In Westgate, award-winning writer/director Adrian Ortega turns his gaze to the unsung multicultural communities who have shaped this city for generations. Over the course of a single day, an Italian-Australian single mother in Melbourne’s working-class west must draw on all her resources as she confronts the ghosts of her past. Following his MIFF-selected debut, Cerulean Blue (2019), Ortega’s sophomore feature is anchored by rich period detail as well as a tightly framed aspect ratio that imbues the story with greater intimacy.
Adam Kamien has followed up his AACTA-nominated debut, The Speedway Murders, with another excoriating true-crime feature in Surviving Malka Leifer – this time, documenting the struggle undertaken by three sisters and their supporters to bring Leifer back to Australia and help carve out a path for fellow survivors. Filmed over five years and featuring firsthand testimony from Dassi Erlich, Nicole Meyer and Elly Sapper alongside interviews with politicians and journalists who worked on the case, the World Premiering film is a compelling portrait of courage in the face of unimaginable adversity.
Beast of War, directed by Kiah Roache-Turner, is a World-Premiering gripping blend of wartime drama and monster horror. After their ship is sunk during WWII, a group of young Australian soldiers — including Indigenous soldier Leo (Mark Coles Smith) and 17-year-old Will (Joel Nankervis) — must survive adrift at sea while being hunted by a monstrous great white shark. Featuring impressive practical effects and striking cinematography by Mark Wareham (Boy Swallows Universe), the film delivers both visceral thrills and a heartfelt tribute to fallen soldiers.
Fermentation meets the undead in Zombucha!, the hilarious and big-hearted horror-comedy starring Jackie Van Beek (Audrey, MIFF 2024) and directed by Claudia Dzienny.The zom-com putting the culture in kombucha culture begins at a trendy café where the signature brew turns customers into the walking dead. Minimum-wage baristas become humanity’s last hope in this caffeinated tale of survival that’s part Shaun of the Dead, part Sorry to Bother You.
MUSIC ON FILM PRESENTED BY RRR
Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements, a meta-documentary on the prolific 90s American indie rockers, combines scripted set-ups, archival documentary footage and musical mise-en-scene composed of songs from their discography. Part concert film, musical, and meta fake biopic starring Joe Keery as the band’s lead creative, Stephen Malkmus, it deliriously explores Pavement’s legacy and slacker iconography.
Australian rock royalty heads to MIFF in Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man, Andrew Farrell‘s comprehensive portrait of the Cold Chisel frontman. Picking up where 2018’s Working Class Boy left off, the World Premiering doc follows the iconic musician from Glasgow tenements to Aussie stadiums, tracing his journey from troubled youth to national treasure. The intimate portrait features unprecedented access and interviews that reveal the man behind the voice that defined a generation.
House music’s revolutionary origins pulse through Move Ya Body: The Birth of House, Elegance Bratton‘s celebration of Chicago’s underground dance revolution. From the ashes of disco’s death, Black and queer pioneers created a sound that would conquer the world, with Bratton’s documentary capturing both the music’s infectious energy and its radical politics of inclusion on the dancefloor.
Mystery and mythology swirl around It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, Amy Berg‘s exploration of the singer whose ethereal voice and tragic death at 30 left an indelible mark on music history. This music doc dives deep into Buckley’s artistic process and complicated relationship with his father, featuring rare footage and intimate interviews that illuminate a talent gone too soon.
Avant-garde icon Meredith Monk is given the prismatic documentary portrait she deserves in Monk in Pieces, Billy Shebar and David Roberts‘ deep dive into the life of the pioneering interdisciplinary artist. Blending performance footage spanning five decades with intimate glimpses of Monk’s creative process, this Victorian Premiere captures an artist who defied categorisation and expanded the boundaries of voice, movement and music.
The Extraordinary Miss Flower follows the remarkable story of Australia’s own Geraldine Flower and the discovery of a suitcase full of passionate, heartfelt letters of love sent to her in the 60s and 70s. Decades later, the letters would go on to inspire acclaimed Icelandic singer-songwriter Emilíana Torrini to create an entire album of original songs. Part film, part theatre, part fever dream, the documentary by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard features a series of performances by Emilíana and her band, and also interviews with Richard Ayoade, Siggi Baldursson, Nick Cave, Alice Lowe, Mark Monero, plus the voice of Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
With flaming cymbals, pornographic projections and music that sounded like civilisation gleefully collapsing, the Butthole Surfers’ live shows were the stuff of unhinged legend. Tom J Stern’s long-overdue documentary, Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt, captures the beautiful insanity of Texas’s most demented noise merchants—where chaos reigns supreme.
SOUND AND SCREEN
Combining Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 silent masterpiece with a spellbinding new score, Julia Holter: The Passion of Joan of Arc transforms cinema into transcendent experience. The acclaimed LA composer brings her ensemble to craft an immense sonic tapestry that matches the spiritual intensity of Renée Jeanne Falconetti’s legendary performance. Accompanied by Holter’s own band and The Consort of Melbourne, this Australian exclusive promises to be one of MIFF’s most unforgettable events.
In a once-in-a-lifetime event, Parasite Live in Concert with composer Jung Jae il sees the composer conduct Orchestra Victoria through his warped baroque score while Bong Joon-ho’s Academy Award-winner plays on the big screen. Fresh from scoring Squid Game and Mickey 17, Jung makes his Australian debut with this exclusive Melbourne performance that reveals new layers in the film that conquered the world.
MIFF SHORTS
The work of German filmmaker and photographer Wim Wenders returns to the festival with a special screening of some of the auteur’s most pivotal shorts in Three by Wim Wenders. The retrospective features Wenders’ second ever short film, Same Player Shoots Again; Reverse Angle, which reflects his time working in America with Francis Ford Coppola on Hammett; and the restoration of Room 666, the 1982 Cannes film where 15 famous directors, including Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Steven Spielberg, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, were asked to give their opinions on the future of cinema.
I’m Glad You’re Dead Now is the directorial debut of actor Tawfeek Barhom, who also stars in the recent Cannes Short Film Palme d’Or Winner.The short follows two brothers grappling with resurfaced secrets that unknowingly bind them together.
Winner of the Special Jury Award Winner in the Narrative Shorts Competition at SXSW, queer rom-com I’m The Most Racist Person I Know is directed by Leela Varghese, co-director of Lesbian Space Princess (MIFF 2025), and stars Australian actress Shabana Azeez (The Pitt; Birdeater, MIFF 2023). When Lali (Azeez) unexpectedly ends up on a date with another woman of colour for the first time, it unravels prejudices she has long ignored.
MIFF XR
Melbourne International Film Festival partners with Now or Never for the world premiere of this immersive installation The World Came Flooding In, co-directed by Van Sowerwine and Isobel Knowles. Through virtual reality, projections, miniatures and sound, this World Premiere installation brings together the experiences of three flood-affected individuals united by climate disaster. A powerful collective narrative that transforms personal loss into shared understanding.
Eight billion stories converge in 8 Billion Selves, Tibor de Jong‘s ambitious Australian Premiere that uses cutting-edge VR to explore what connects us across continents and cultures. Each user’s journey through this immersive experience is unique, creating a meditation on individuality within the collective human experience.
Taiwanese artist Wen-Yee Hsieh plunges viewers into psychological horror with Limbophobia, an immersive VR experience that asks us to contemplate the fragility of life, the consequences of losing it and the catastrophic impact of a world without empathy.
Beauty and technology merge in Dani: the Portrait of a Beauty, Cooper Yoo‘s Australian Premiere that reimagines paintings by Shin Yunbok for the digital age. Using volumetric capture, Yoo creates a VR experience that takes users on a journey into the Joseon Dynasty of the 1700s, exploring Pansori storytelling, traditional Korean dance and more.
RESTORATIONS, TALKS, AND OTHER SPECIAL EVENTS
A generation-defining Australian coming-of-age story is restored in lively 4K for the first time as Looking for Alibrandi (4K Restoration) makes its World Premiere return to screens. Kate Woods‘ beloved adaptation of Melina Marchetta‘s novel arrives 25 years after it first captured hearts, with Pia Miranda, Kick Gurry and Anthony LaPaglia looking better than ever in this crystalline restoration that re-confirms its status as a modern Aussie classic.
Presented by NFSA, Jane Campion‘s audacious debut Sweetie is given a 4K restoration that highlights every frame of Sally Bongers‘ candy-coloured cinematography. Karen Colston and Geneviève Lemon deliver fearless performances as sisters locked in psychological warfare, with Campion’s singular vision looking more radical than ever 35 years later.
Local provocateur Philip Brophy returns to MIFF with restorations of two essential works. Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat remains a visceral assault on bodily taboos, while No Dance deconstructs movement and music with typical Brophy perversity. The films arrive as testament to an artist who refused to play nice with Australian cinema’s polite conventions.
Chantal Akerman: Traces is the festival’s largest ever delivered retrospective of a single director, showcasing 27 films across 13 sessions. 2025 marks three milestones for the iconic Belgian filmmaker: what would have been Akerman’s 75th birthday, the 10th anniversary of her passing, and the 50th anniversary of her landmark film and avant-garde classic, Jeanne Dielman (1975). Highlight restored works making their Australian debuts this MIFF include Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978), which follows Aurore Clément on a melancholic journey through 1970s Europe; Portrait d’une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles (1994), capturing youth in revolt; and Demain on déménage (2004), which features Akerman’s late-period brilliance with Sylvie Testud navigating Paris real estate and an existential crisis with equal desperation.
MIFF’s popular Critical Condition screening series returns to reckon with the idea of cinema as nostalgia. As the festival’s internationally attending guest critics, Amy Nicholson (Los Angeles Times), Angelica Jade Bastién (Vulture) and Lovia Gyarkye (Hollywood Reporter) host a trio of films that explore the present through the lens of the past, including Herbert Ross‘ Pennies from Heaven, Haile Gerima‘s Sankofa, and Juraj Herz‘s Beauty and the Beast, with each film followed by an in-cinema conversation.
The MIFF Talks program expands with a dynamic lineup of events designed to spark dialogue and deepen engagement with screen culture. Theory to Practice, presented by the University of Melbourne, is a brand-new industry series exploring the intersection of academic insight and creative application. The ever-popular Consuming Culturepanel event is back with support from presenting partner, The Wheeler Centre, bringing together thought leaders to dish on the cultural landscape. Meanwhile, MIFF’s regular In Conversations series returns to the program, supported by Fed Square, offering audiences intimate discussions with some of the festival’s most compelling filmmakers and talent.
MIFF AND AFL PRESENTS: FOOTY SHORTS
MIFF and the AFL, with support from VicScreen, proudly present the Footy Shorts Gala on Tuesday 12 August – a celebration of five compelling new short documentaries exploring Australian rules football through a fresh lens. The initiative showcases powerful storytelling from emerging voices, celebrating the culture, diversity and community impact of footy.
The documentaries will have their world premieres at MIFF, with additional screenings across regional Victoria and via MIFF Online. The selected titles are, Breaking the Line: The Peta Searle Story (Paige Cardona, Grace Anna Cardona), Bush Boots (Kynan Clarke, Isabel Dilena), Eye of the Game: The Deaf Ruckman (Adam Bigum, Ramas McRae), House Divided (Lachlan Baynes, Danielle Baynes) and No Prior Opportunity (Theo McMahon, Fraser Pemberton, Alexandra Walton).
Each selected project received $20,000 in production funding along with mentorship from industry leaders across MIFF, VicScreen and the AFL.
EATING AND DRINKING AT MIFF
MIFF-revellers need not look far to discover some of this year’s lively festival hotspots and post-screening hidden gems. The Festival Hub and bar located at ACMI makes a fevered return to 2025, hosting residencies by Skylab Radio and beverages on pour by Campari, Penfolds, Asahi, Padre Coffee and more. Across the road, Wax Music Lounge also joins MIFF to expand this year’s festival footprint – a new late night haunt where film musings can continue into the early hours, long after screens go dark.
Presented by Broadsheet, MIFF’s delectable Food and Film pairings return in 2025, matching seven of Melbourne’s hottest eateries with a curated selection of the most tantalising films in this year’s program. This year’s participating venues include Bossley Bar & Restaurant, Barra, Cumulus, Supernormal, Elio’s Place, Antara and MIFF’s own Festival Hub at ACMI. Each pairing offers a deliciously immersive experience, where cinematic storytelling meets Melbourne’s vibrant culinary scene in a feast for all the senses.
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MIFF Unveils Full Program
