2024
Al Cossar

Cinematically synonymous with the bluster of a Melbourne winter, MIFF’s return in 2024 heralds a heady voyage and a venturing into films far from our doorstep, and far from the rickety pseudo-imaginations of the entertainment currently clogging up the screens, feeds and brains of Melburnians.
Prepare to have the vanilla-dopamine hits of your non-MIFF-season entertainment shattered, once again, by cinema.
The festival starts with a hometown celebration of one of our finest Melburnian moviemakers: Adam Elliot’s long-awaited MIFF Premiere Fund–supported Memoir of a Snail – dark, delightful and attuned to the shonkily beloved wavelengths of Australian suburbia (not to mention the joys of a Chiko Roll). Opening Night will be a moment you must be there for – along with so many others this year.
From Justin Kurzel’s portrait of Warren Ellis in Ellis Park, a film so contemporary in the binds it makes between compassion and creativity, to our world-premiere Family Gala of Magic Beach, Robert Connolly’s ambitious adaptation of the beloved Australian children’s classic (and don’t forget the repeat screening at Peninsula Hot Springs for a more aquatically immersive movie-going time!), there are films to be found for everyone among this year’s bumper 250+ film crop.
Films that will hone your mind to the urgent matters of the world around you; others that will take you far from any semblance of reality; there are the formally adventurous and the experimentally leaning, the hilarious, the terror-inducing, and those that are warm hugs to reset your heart amid the cold days.
This year, we’re particularly thrilled to present a major retrospective program uniquely curated for MIFF from The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New York’s landmark Iranian Cinema before the Revolution, 1925–1979 retrospective. Iranian New Wave: 1962–79 is an expansive collection of underseen and outrightly unseen greats of the Iranian cinema canon from the 60s and 70s, also including nonfiction and rarely screened work from the golden era of Iranian animation. It’s a rare onscreen opportunity not to be missed.
Elsewhere, our Bright Horizons competition is unmissable cinema – returning for its third year, a lightning rod for the most important breakthrough voices in world cinema, as we celebrate the new, the next, the bold and the best. All presented in Australian premiere (and many with IMAX screenings!), and with a number of international filmmakers on the ground in Melbourne, Bright Horizons flips the film-competition model to focus on discovery, on ascent into auteurship – a chance for audiences to meet the most important new filmmakers as they shape cinema before your eyes. I hope you’ll check out what has come to be one of the most singular and exciting destinations for film within the program-at-large.
MIFF, again, continues to meet you where you are: within metropolitan Melbourne, alongside weekend expansions to seven country Victorian towns, or all across Australia at your place, with a selection of festival highlights screening via MIFF’s online season on ACMI’s virtual Cinema 3.
Being part of an audience these days is not a passive pursuit, and that is at the heart of the modern MIFF. Our hometown’s own brand of cinematic maximalism, a path forged across hundreds of movies – it’s a beautiful thing, and it is back to enjoy. Thank you, as ever, for being a part of MIFF, and for your support of and interest in the festival. We at MIFF hope this program catches your curiosity. We’ll see you in the cinema this August.
Films

A Catholic Schoolgirl

A Century in Sound

A Crab in the Pool

A Daydream With Fini

A Different Man

A New Kind of Wilderness

A Simple Event

A Thousand Odd Days

A Traveler’s Needs

Abiding Nowhere

Accelerator Shorts 1

Accelerator Shorts 2

Alarms

Alazar

Alemania

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

All Shall Be Well

All We Imagine as Light

An Unfinished Film

Analog Medium

Animale

Animation Shorts

Aquarius

Architecton

Armand

As the Tide Comes In

Audrey

Australian Shorts

Babes


Behind the Mountains

Best MIFF Shorts

Binti

Black Box Diaries

Black Dog

Blackout

Blood Like Water

Blue Sun Palace

Bob Trevino Likes It

Bookworm

Bőr (Skin)

Break No.1 & Break No.2

Brick and Mirror

Brief History of a Family

By the Stream

Calf

Canard

Caught by the Tides

Christmas Eve in Miller's Point

Cidade; Campo

Close Your Eyes

Clown


Consuming Culture

Cookies

Copa 71


Crossing

Crushed

Cuckoo

DEVO

Dahomey

Dale Frank – Nobody's Sweetie

Daphne was a torso ending in leaves

Daughters

Dead End

Destroy All Monsters

Dig! XX

Direct Action

Documentary Shorts


Dory Previn: On My Way to Where

Dream Team

Dying

Dìdi

East of Noon

Ellis Park

Emperor

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

Ever Since, I Have Been Flying

Every Little Thing

Every Morning

Experimental Shorts

Family Gala - Magic Beach

Father's Letters

Film About a Woman Who...

First Horse

Flathead

Flide

Flow

Flower Show

Frame Documentary Showcase

Fulldome Showcase 1

Fulldome Showcase 2

Fungi: Web of Life

Future Council

Gaucho Gaucho

Ghost Cat Anzu

Ghost Trail

Gigi

Godzilla

Godzilla 70th Anniversary Marathon

Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla

Godzilla vs Mothra

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack


Good One

Grand Theft Hamlet

Grand Tour

Grandmamauntsistercat

Green Border

He Ain't Heavy

Head South

Hear My Eyes - Wake in Fright x Surprise Chef

Heavenly Creatures

Hesitation Wound

Histoires d'Amérique: Food, Family and Philosophy

Hito

Hoard

Honey Kaha

Honeymoon

House of the Seasons

Hurikán

I Saw the TV Glow

I Shall Not Hate

INNERSTAR 01: Reddening

Immortals

Impossible Space

In Conversation: David Lowery

In Conversation: Ondi Timoner


In Vitro

In the Garden of Tulips

In the Shadow of the Cypress

Inside

Intercepted

International Shorts 1

International Shorts 2


It follows It passes on

Iwakura

Janet Planet

Julie Keeps Quiet


Kar

Kid Snow

Kneecap

La Cocina

Lake Mungo 4K

Lasting Impressions

Lea Tupu'anga / Mother Tongue

Lee

Left Write Hook

Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke

Like My Brother

Limbotopia

Lives of Performers

Look Into My Eyes





MURDER and murder

Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger

Magic Beach

Malu

Man number 4

Mars Futures

Matt and Mara

Matta and Matto

Me & Mazzy Melancholy

Megalopolis

Memoir of a Snail

Memory

Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros

Metaract

Misericordia

Mogwai: If the Stars Had a Sound

Mongrel

Motel Destino

Moving

Music on Film Gala - Ellis Park

My Favourite Cake

My First Film

My Old Ass

My Sunshine

No Other Land

Norah

Normal

Nothing but Shadows

Occupied City

Oddity

Oi

Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

On Plains of Larger River & Woodlands

Opening Night Gala - Memoir of a Snail

Pepe

Pigsy

Pleasure

Premiere With Purpose - Left Write Hook

Privilege

Problemista

Punctum

Queens of Concrete

Queer Utopia: Act I Cruising

Reinas

Remains of the Hot Day

Rewards for the Tribe

Rhythm

Romulus, My Father (Restoration)

Rumours

Runt

Santosh

Sasquatch Sunset

Scala!!!

Secret Mall Apartment

September Says

Shadowtime

Shambhala

Shameless!

She Loved Blossoms More

She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones

Shin Godzilla

Shé (Snake)

Simon of the Mountain

Sing Sing

Single File

Slow Shift

Some Rain Must Fall

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat

Stephen Cummins Retrospective


Stress Positions

Sujo

Sunlight

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story

Suspended Time

Sweet Dreams

Taiwan With a Twist

Tall Shadows of the Wind

Teaches of Peaches

The Balconettes

The Carriage Driver

The Cars That Ate Paris

The Cats of Gokogu Shrine

The Concierge

The Cow

The Damned

The Dead Don't Hurt

The Deer

The Demon Disorder

The Falling Sky

The Girl With the Needle

The Horn

The Hyperboreans

The Land at Night

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

The Man Who Envied Women

The Masterpiece

The Meaningless Daydreams of Augie & Celeste

The Medallion

The Memphis Chronicles: Water's Edge

The Moogai

The Most Precious of Cargoes

The Organist

The Outrun

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin

The Return of Godzilla

The Ride Ahead

The Rye Horn

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

The Shrouds

The Small Back Room

The Sparrow in the Chimney

The Stimming Pool

The Story of Souleymane

The Stranger and the Fog

The Substance

The Tree's Home

The Village Next to Paradise

The World According to Allee Willis

Thelma

This Is a Film About The Black Keys

Timestalker

To a Land Unknown

Toll

Tranquility in the Presence of Others

Tuesday

Twilight Time

Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other

Un rêve plus long que la nuit

Universal Language

Universal Language & Iranian Cinema

Us and the Night


Very Gentle Work

Viet and Nam

Voice

Vulcanizadora

WTF Shorts

Wake Up

We Were Dangerous

Welcome Space Brothers

Who Do I Belong To

Who by Fire

Wilding

Winners

Withered Blossoms

Yakka

You Are My Tomorrow

You Burn Me

You Should Have Been Here Yesterday
