The Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival (BOFA) is a small weekend festival happening in Tasmania from 1-3 September.

Bringing in flicks from all around the world, locals won’t want to miss the stellar selection with screenings all across Launceston.

Their 2023 program has just dropped, and we’ve rounded up a few of the highlights.

Read: Australian Film Festivals Guide 2023

Unmissable Features

Past Lives

Friday 1st Sept: 8.00pm
In this intimate romance, two former Korean school friends explore a deep childhood connection by connecting online as young adults and finally in person in New York.

Afire

Saturday 2nd Sept: 8.00pm
Winner of the Silver Bear award at the 2023 Berlinale Film Festival, Afire follows Leon and his art student friend, Felix. Their plans to relax at a holiday home by the Baltic Sea, revise Leon’s manuscript and take some photographs for Felix’s portfolio are complicated by finding the house has also been let to the beautiful Nadja and her hunky boyfriend. 

Goodbye Julia

Saturday 3 September: 12.30pm

Wracked by guilt after covering up a murder, Mona – a wealthy Muslim from northern Sudan tries to make amends by hiring the deceased’s widow, Julia, a poor Christian southerner. Mona’s husband Akram, unaware Julia is the wife of the man he murdered, soon becomes a father figure to Julia’s young child, Daniel.

EO

Sunday 3 September: 10.00am

EO (recalling, of course, Eeyore from AA Milne’s tales), is a story of a grey donkey with melancholy eyes, who encounters good and bad on his journey through life, experiences joy and pain, and endures the Wheel of Fortune.

Read: EO: how Jerzy Skolimowski’s film makes us empathise with a donkey

Subtraction

Sunday 3 September: 3.00pm

Farzaneh (Taraneh Alidoosti) spots her husband, Jalal, getting on a bus, decides to follow him and sees him let into a unit by a woman. So begins a mystery, a thriller and a submerged political statement. 

Riceboy Sleeps

Saturday 2 September: 3.00pm

Riceboy Sleeps follows So-Young (Choi Seung-yoon), a Korean immigrant who moves to Canada with the intention of giving her son Dong-Hyun (Ethan Hwang) a better life. It’s a simple story on paper, but in practice becomes incredibly amibitious.

BOFA runs from 1-3 September 2023. For tickets and more information, head to the Breath of Fresh Air website.