Motherhood is a wild ride in Mary Bronstein’s Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) opening night gala, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, featuring local hero Rose Byrne.
With so much more to explore from there, including a 4K restoration of BMX Bandits featuring Nicole with the big hair and a chance to revel in misunderstood musical Pennies From Heaven, we’ve hand-picked a few choice options.
We Bury the Dead/ Zombucha!/ Dead Lover
Did anyone order zombies? There’s a brain-tasting trio on offer at this year’s MIFF, headed up by These Final Hours filmmaker Zak Hilditch’s five-star Tasmanian apocalypse, We Bury the Dead, featuring Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley.
The improbably popular fermented tea takes a turn in Claudia Dzienny’s Sydney-set comedy horror Zombucha!with Audrey star Jackie van Beek. And Canadian director and star Grace Glowicki’s open grave rom-com Dead Lover takes until death do us part to absurd depths
First Light
Up for MIFF’s astounding $140,000 Bright Horizons prize for emerging filmmakers, Australian-Filipino former Vogue photographer-turned-writer/director James J Robinson’s luminous, Luzon-set debut feature unwittingly pits a gentle-hearted nun against corrupt forces that do not value the lives of construction workers.
1000 Frames
Blurring the lines between the documentary form and dramatic feature in ways that will leave you breathless, Mehrnoush Alia’s Berlinale-bowing debut feature appears to let us sit in on auditions for an Iranian film production of the ancient Persian tale, Scheherazade.
But as the unseen director’s requests get increasingly gross, the women auditioning for him begin to suspect the role’s not worth it in this staggeringly intimate thriller.
Peter Hujar’s Day
Love is Strange director Ira Sachs has carved a remarkable career out of spinning queer NYC stories that resonate. He rescues the profound work of the titular photographer (Ben Wishaw) and Warhol contemporary cruelly taken too soon during the HIV/AIDS crisis, via the little miracle of adapting the long-lost transcript of an interview with him conducted by best friend and writer, Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall). Sublime stuff.
A Useful Ghost
If you hoover up surreally dark comedy, then high-tail it to Bangkok-based Thai-Teochew-Hainanese filmmaker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s bizarre ghost story. Also in the running for the Bright Horizons prize, the Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prix-winner features Wisarut Himmarat as March, a grieving husband who suspects his vacuum cleaner is possessed by the spirit of his late wife, Nat (Davika Hoorne). If you’re not already sold, then you’re a sucker.
The Toxic Avenger
They told us Macon Blair’s wild swing of a franchise revival was too trashy to release, instantly forging a must-see cult classic. Casting Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage as Winston Gooze, the mild-mannered janitor transformed by radioactive ooze into a powered-up ecowarrior, it also features ‘six degrees of’ Kevin Bacon and Jacob Tremblay. Be warned, Superman this is not, MIFFers …
Journey Home, David Gulpilil
From Walkabout and Storm Boy to the latter’s remake, Goldstone and Cargo via Ten Canoes and Rabbit-Proof Fence, few actors have made quite such an indelible mark on Australian cinemas as the late, infinitely great David Gulpilil. Co-directors Maggie Miles and Trisha Morton-Thomas trace the hurdles faced in laying him to rest on his Country in this elegiac documentary.
The Little Sister
Scoring this year’s Queer Palm, the Cannes Film Festival’s LGBTQIA+ Award, French-Algerian César-winning actor-turned-filmmaker Hafsia Herzi draws on her personal history for this coming-of-age and coming out drama. Newcomer Nadia Melliti plays 17-year-old Fatima, who soon forgets all about her good Muslim boyfriend when she begins to fall for women, including Return to Seoul star Park Ji-min, while studying in Paris.
Seeds
Winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, American director Brittany Shyne’s lushly black-and-white documentary, shot over almost a decade, allows us to sit with the Black farmers who, against all odds in a dwindling industry, continue to work the land their ancestors were brought to in chains. Powerful stuff about intergenerational reckonings.
Night Stage
In the mood for risky, steamy sex on screen at MIFF? Well, buckle up (or undone) for Brazilian directorial duo Marcio Reolon and Filipe Matzembacher’s sweat-inducing follow-up to Hard Paint. When theatrical dancer Matias (Gabriel Faryas) cruises closeted politician Rafael (Cirillo Luna) in a Midsummer’s Eve park beat, the incendiary sparks flashing between them will set fire to their careers and everyone around them.
The Librarians
Featuring quotes from dystopian-dealing author George Orwell, Oscar-nominated documentarian Kim A. Snyder champions the front-line workers facing down obscenely fascist book-banning crusades racking United States’ libraries under Trump’s tyrannical rule, particularly aimed at the queer community.
Also catch Raoul Peck’s astounding Orwell: 2+2=5 for a grim pairing that nevertheless makes room for hope in everyday heroes.
A Poet
Colombian director Simón Mesa Soto’s Medellín-set, Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize-winning sophomore feature, also in the Bright Horizons mix, makes a star out of Ubeimar Rios. He plays Óscar, an aging, faded poet whose literary ambitions are uncharitably dashed by his sister, who instead dubs him ‘unemployed’.
When he winds up in a teaching gig, he attempts to nurture the much greater talent of teenager Yurlady (Rebeca Andrade), who’s more focused on paying her poor family’s bills.
Come See Me in the Good Light
While we’re on the subject of poets, stash all the tissues you can find up your sleeve for this heartbreakingly beautiful ode to an artistic life incredibly well-lived. Directed by The Case Against 8 helmer Ryan White, it follows the last years of non-binary poet Andrea Gibson, diagnosed with ovarian cancer, as they prepare to pass on with as much love and light as possible, thanks to Megan Falley and friends, including comedian Tig Notaro.
Punku
Peruvian filmmaker Juan Daniel F Molero’s Berlinale-debuting third feature takes us along the Amazon river towards the high jungle city of Quillabamba in the care of Meshia, an Indigenous teenager determined to save the life of Iván, the best friend she thought was dead after he vanished two years ago, but who suddenly reappears in a bad way.
Told in chapters using a mixture of everything from Super 8 to 16mm, this decade-in-the-making voyage upends the fabric of reality playfully.
Surviving Maika Leifer
If you were appalled by the news that the headmistress of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Melbourne had fled the country before facing allegations she abused many of the children in her care, then you’ll want to see the latest powerful true-crime documentary from The Speedway Murders director Adam Kamien. It traces indomitable sisters Dassi Erlich, Nicole Meyer and Elly Sapper as they tenaciously battle to bring Leifer to justice in this MIFF premiere.
ScreenHub: MIFF unveils sprawling 2025 film festival program
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