Bringing truth to fiction: a chat with MIFF winner Brietta Hague

Journalist and filmmaker Brietta Hague talks about her MIFF-winning Australian short film 'Baltasar', shot in Barcelona.
Brietta Hague

Last week, Brietta Hague’s 20-minute drama Baltasar was announced as winner of the Melbourne International Film Festival’s Film Victoria Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian Short Film.

Set and shot in Barcelona, and made as a Spanish-Australian co-production, Baltasar follows a Senegalese migrant as he goes about his day, caring for a sick housemate, then heading to a shopping mall to dress up as one of the ‘Three Wise Men’ in a Christmas show for kids.

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Rochelle Siemienowicz is a Melbourne writer and editor. Her first book Fallen, a memoir was published in 2014 and her second, Double Happiness, a novel, in 2024. She has a PhD in Australian cinema and was previously a journalist at ScreenHub and ArtsHub. ou can find her on Instagram: @Rochelle_Rochelle or at Substack where she writes a fortnightly newsletter, The Fool and the Queen.