The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is returning in August and we couldn’t be more pumped.
With a jam-packed program from August 5-22, MIFF will sport a record of 11 Premiere Fund film debuts, the first Australian film in Cannes Competition in a decade, much-anticipated titles from Berlin, Venice and Sundance film festivals and of course, Palazzo di Cozzo; the Franco Cozzo documentary we all deserve.
MIFF’s 2020 online festival reached the largest audience in the festival’s history, which has inspired them to do things a little differently this year. The innovations of MIFF 2021 will give films their largest ever platform, with the event presenting as a hybrid festival across cinema and digital.
Like always, there will be some incredible social, political and historical topics covered in MIFF’s film selections. The festival’s Opening Night Gala will feature the Australian premiere of Leah Purcell’s highly-anticipated The Drover’s Wife The Legend Of Molly Johnson — which explores a vivid reckoning with Australia’s colonial history. The revisionist outback western speaks emphatically to the realities, both past and present, of racial injustice, told through the lens of an Indigenous woman.
“I am excited to bring the Dreaming storytelling structure of The Drover’s Wife The Legend Of Molly Johnson to the big screen and as part of such a prestigious festival,” said Purcell. “It is an honour to be the first female Indigenous director to have an opening night film at MIFF and I am thrilled to act as an ambassador for their stellar showcase of filmmaking.”
Direct from its world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival is Nitram, the first Australian film in Cannes Competition in a decade and the first Victorian film to earn that accolade in more than 30 years, from director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown).
A narrative depiction of the events leading up to one of the darkest chapters in modern Australian history, Nitram is produced by Nick Batzias (The Australian Dream, MIFF 2019) and Virginia Whitwell (Below, MIFF Premiere Fund 2019), and stars Caleb Landry Jones (Get Out; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Anthony LaPaglia (Balibo, MIFF Premiere Fund 2009), Judy Davis (The Dressmaker) and Essie Davis (The Babadook, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries).
Another incredible entry, based on the experiences of a sporting great, is Streamline. The film features a teenager fighting to stay afloat in the world of competitive swimming, echoing Olympic gold medallist Ian Thorpe’s early career. Shining a piercing light on teenage masculinity, abandonment and the pressures of competitive sport, the feature debut of Tyson Wade Johnstone includes a cameo from Thorpe himself (who also served as executive producer) and a cast including Jake Ryan (Underbelly, Savage) and the inimitable Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter).
And of course, another Australian (or should we say Foot-as-craaay) icon Franco Cozzo takes centre stage in Palazzo Di Cozzo, a touching exploration of the Melbourne furniture mogul’s inspirational and aspirational story. The film was directed by Madeleine Martiniello and is a charming tale of multiculturalism and community.
Once again meeting audiences where they are, MIFF returns to familiar theatres across Melbourne CBD, while expanding into five suburban sites, screening in eight regional centres and streaming online nationally via the festival’s new digital platform, MIFF Play.
In preparation, it’s time to start YouTubing some trailers.
Here are all the titles you’ll be seeing at MIFF this year:
Here is the full program of titles showing at Melbourne International Film Festival 2021:
GALAS:
• The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson
• Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
• Language Lessons
HEADLINERS:
• Annette
• Bergman Island
• Dear Comrades!
• Flee
• Memoria
• New Order
• Nitram
• No Sudden Move
• Petite Maman
• Quo Vadis, Aida?
• The Year of the Everlasting Storm
• Three Floors
AUSTRALIAN FILMS:
• Araatika: Rise Up!
• Blind Ambition
• Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution
• Dry Winter
• Friends and Strangers
• Geeta
• Hating Peter Tatchell
• Ithaka
• Little Tornadoes
• Lone Wolf
• Off Country
• Palazzo di Cozzo
• Paper City
• River
• Streamline
• Uluru & the Magician
• When Pomegranates Howl
DOCUMENTARIES:
• All Light, Everywhere
• Bulletproof
• Captains of Zaatari
• City Hall
• Come Back Anytime
• Cow
• Girls | Museum
• He’s My Brother
• Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful
• James & Isey
• Le temps perdu
• Moments Like This Never Last
• Mr Bachmann and His Class
• My Name Is Pauli Murray
• North by Current
• Notturno
• President
• Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
• Sabaya
• Set!
• Stray
• Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street
• The Gig Is Up
• The Monopoly of Violence
• The Reason I Jump
• The Witches of the Orient
• Wojnarowicz
DOCUMENTARY VISION:
• Babi Yar. Context
• Faya Dayi
• Rock Bottom Riser
• Taming the Garden
• The Beloved
• This Rain Will Never Stop
• Those Left Waiting
• Faya Dayi
• Rock Bottom Riser
• Taming the Garden
• The Beloved
• This Rain Will Never Stop
• Those Left Waiting
NEW IRANIAN CINEMA:
• A Hero
• Ballad of a White Cow
• Bandar Band
• Hit the Road
• Radiograph of a Family
• Sun Children
• The Night
• The Wasteland
• There Is No Evil
INTERNATIONAL: AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
• Eyimofe (This is My Desire)
• Gaza Mon Amour
• Let It Be Morning
• Memory Box
• Moffie
• Nafi’s Father
• Night of the Kings
• Souad
• The Gravedigger’s Wife
INTERNATIONAL: ASIA PACIFIC
• Are You Lonesome Tonight?
• Days
• Drive My Car
• Genus Pan
• Introduction
• Mama
• Pebbles
• The Edge of Daybreak
• The Justice of Bunny King
• Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
• Wife of a Spy
INTERNATIONAL: NORTH AMERICA
• Best Sellers
• Blue Bayou
• CODA
• Cryptozoo
• Freshman Year
• I Was a Simple Man
• Pig
• Queen of Glory
• Together Together
• Topside
• Zola
INTERNATIONAL: LATIN AMERICA
• A Cop Movie
• Aurora
• Azor
• La Civil
• La Verónica
• Madalena
• Nudo Mixteco
• Prayers for the Stolen
INTERNATIONAL: EUROPE
• Apples
• Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
• Beginning
• Celts
• El Planeta
• Evolution
• Great Freedom
• House Arrest
• Libertad
• Limbo
• Love Songs for Tough Guys
• Luzzu
• Moon, 66 Questions
• Never Gonna Snow Again
• Ninjababy
• Playlist
• Pleasure
• Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period
of Time
• Riders of Justice
• The Hill Where Lionesses Roar
• The Macaluso Sisters
• The Painted Bird
• Unclenching the Fists
• Undine
• What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
MUSIC ON FILM:
• Anonymous Club
• Freakscene – The Story of Dinosaur Jr.
• I’m Wanita
• Karen Dalton: In My Own Time
• Love in Bright Landscapes
• No Ordinary Man
• Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché
• Sisters With Transistors
• The Nowhere Inn
• Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free
• Wash My Soul in the River’s Flow
• We Are the Thousand
EXPERIMENTATIONS:
• Come Here
• Social Hygiene
• The Girl and the Spider
• The Inheritance
• The Tsugua Diaries
NIGHT SHIFT:
• Censor
• Coming Home in the Dark
• Fist of Fury Noongar Daa
• Gaia
• Howard the Duck 70mm Special Screening
• In The Earth
• Lamb
• Rose: A Love Story
• The Scary of Sixty-First
• The Spine of Night
FILMS ON FILM:
• Ablaze
• Hopper/Welles
• Psychomania
• The Kids
• The Lair of the White Worm
• The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
• The Village Detective: A Song Cycle
• Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
COLLECTIVES:
• Black Audio Collective
• Deux fois
• Devotion: A Film About Ogawa Productions
• Disobedient Muses: Jackie Reynal, Les
Insoumuses & Barbara Cleveland
• Handsworth Songs
• Is This Just a Story?
• Maid Servant
• Maso and Miso Go Boating
• Sanrizuka – Peasants of the Second Fortress
• Seven Songs for Malcolm X
• This Is a Stained Glass Window
• Tobacco Embers
• Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives
• Yugantar Collective
CELINE SCIAMMA: SELECTS
• Big
• Children of Montmartre
• No Home Movie
• Wolf Children
MIFF SHORTS:
• 2008
• Ain’t No Time For Women
• Alba
• Angh
• Are You Still Watching
• As One
• Bach-Hông
• Baltasar
• Beautiful They
• Black Hole
• Bonanza!
• Bubble
• Call History
• Craftsman
• Don’t Forget to Go Home
• Each Other
• earthearthearth
• Entre Tú Y Milagros
• Finding Jedda
• Freedom Swimmer
• Giants
• Glen
• Glimpses from a Visit to Orkney in Summer 1995
• Gravedad
• Happy Valley
• Hot Mother
• I Am Afraid To Forget Your Face
• Jeanette Is The Dog
• Jungle
• KKUM
• Laura
• Lili Alone
• Listen to the Beat of Our Images
• Lizard
• Maat Means Land
• Madrid, Bad Life
• Marcelita
• Multiply
• Nest
• Nestor
• Nezunoban
• Nina
• Not a Wallflower
• O Black Hole!
• Oldboy’s Apples
• One Thousand And One Attempts to Be an Ocean
• Poise
• Poleng
• Prom Night
• Reptile
• Riding Scooters
• Slap
• Spirits And Rocks: An Azorean Myth
• Step Into The River
• Such Small Hands
• Sunburn
• Sunset Country
• The Bends
• The Echo
• The Game
• The Human Voice
• The I and S of Lives
• The Men Who Wait
• The Ninth Tower
• The Prelude – Michelle
• The Story Of Lee Ping
• The Trees
• Thorax
• To Feather, To Wither
• Tough
• Train Again
• Trona Pinnacles
• Une Belle Journée
• Valpi (Tectonics)
• Wirun
• With The Cattle
• Yellow Girl And Me
• You And Me Before And After
• Your Street
XR:
• Artefacts
• Symphony VR
• IOPU
• Paper Birds
• Bridge To Sovietopia
• Lagos at Large
• Bodyless
• Nightsss
• Biolum
• Fortune!
MIFF SCHOOLS:
• Mission Ulja Funk
• The Day Is Over
• It’s a Summer Film!
• The Fantastic Journey of Margot and Marguerite
• A School in Cerro Hueso
MIFF screening locations:
Melbourne CBD
Comedy Theatre
Forum Theatre
RMIT Capitol Theatre
ACMI Fed Square
Kino Cinemas
Hoyts Melbourne Central
Melbourne suburbs
Coburg Drive-In – Coburg The Astor – Chapel Street – St Kilda
Palace Cinemas Pentridge – Coburg
The Sun Theatre – Yarraville
Lido Cinemas – Hawthorn
Regional Victoria
The Sun Theatre – Bright
The Sun Theatre – Bairnsdale
Peninsula Cinemas – Sorrento
The Star – Bendigo
The Pivotonian – Geelong
Theatre Royal – Castlemaine
Paramount Cinemas – Echuca
Wallis Cinemas Mildura – Mildura
Tickets will be on sale on July 16th, 2021. To find out more, head to the MIFF website.
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