One of Australia’s greatest cult classics – a mockumentary that is equal parts ghost story and family drama – screens for the very first time in a previously unseen, glorious new 4K restoration.

Alice Palmer was like most 16-year-olds, living in quiet suburbia with her parents and brother. But she had a dark side, and it’s only after her mysterious death that the secrets she held inside could be released. Told through the format of a television documentary, Alice’s story threatens to haunt her family for all time – figuratively and literally. Is it really her ghost that her loved ones see in photos and videos? Or just the memories of a desperate young girl? It isn’t until a terrifying discovery at Lake Mungo that all is clarified … or so they believe.

Released to little fanfare in 2008, Joel Anderson’s debut feature eventually amassed a reputation as an unmissable classic of Aussie horror; with its intricate central puzzle, unsettling atmosphere and ominously subdued score, some even regard it as one of the scariest films ever made. Anderson has since worked as executive producer on Late Night With the Devil (MIFF 2023) and as script editor for Netflix hit Clickbait, but the mesmeric pull of his sole directorial feature only continues to grow. Now stunningly restored in 4K, this masterpiece can leave even more audiences gripped, potently getting under their skin.

“Intellectually satisfying and emotionally engaging … Horror fans the world over should be celebrating this as one of that genre’s smartest and most innovative films of the 2000s.” – Alternate Ending