When the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) kicks off on 8 August with Memoir of a Snail, the latest stop-motion animated adventure from Oscar-winning Harvie Krumpet filmmaker Adam Elliot, the city will once again be whipped up in a cinematic fervour. Stretched out across almost three weeks, and featuring everything from a marathon dedicated to 70 years of Godzilla to the world premiere of Guy Pearce and Cosmo Jarvis-led prison drama Inside, there’s surely something for everyone.
But where to start? We asked MIFF’s valiant programming team (and our reviewer) to unearth some of the 2024 festival’s hidden gems.
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
Chosen by MIFF Artistic Director Al Cossar
It’s all too easy to focus on the dark side of the online realm, but MIFF’s artistic director saw a brighter side in this Sundance Award-winning feature from Norwegian director Benjamin Ree.
‘His beyond beautiful film traces the hidden life of Mats Steen, a young man with a degenerative muscular condition, through the online role-playing game World of Warcraft,’ Cossar says. ‘A place where he transcended the physicalities of friendship and redefined the richness of what a digital life can be.’
MIFF blurb: When Mats Steen dies at just 25, his parents grieve the loss of their son as much as the full life they believe he was denied. But when they post a death notice on the web, they are inundated with heartfelt condolence messages and stories from people all around the world who had befriended Mats through the online role-playing videogame World of Warcraft. Duchenne muscular dystrophy may have confined Mats’s body, but the degenerative disease couldn’t confine his mind, his soul, his generosity and kindness, or his imagination.
Read: MIFF 2024: full program
Timestalker
Timestalker. Image: MIFF.
Chosen by MIFF Programmer Kate Fitzpatrick
MIFF programmer Kate Fitzpatrick’s top pick is this Night Shift tripper from English actor, comedian and filmmaker Alice Lowe. A fantastic follow-up to her deliriously good feature debut, Prevenge, it spins a darkly comic time-travelling tale with a hint of Russian Doll. Lowe also stars alongside Interview With the Vampire lead Jacob Anderson, Shaun of the Dead’s Nick Frost and Welsh heartthrob Aneurin Barnard.
‘It’s a time-hopping hopeless romance/stalker tale of self-realisation and perms that also features excellent slapstick, and I am a big fan of that when it’s done well,’ Fitzpatrick says. ‘To quote Jack Black in High Fidelity, “It’s so funny and violent and the soundtrack kicks fucking ass”.’
MIFF blurb: Agnes is wildly in love with Alex. She won’t listen to her sensible advisor Scipio, hasn’t even noticed that her best friend Meg is equally in love with her, and doesn’t clock that the thuggish George wants her for himself. Agnes simply must have the brooding, edgy outsider, even at the cost of her own life. And, indeed, that’s the violent price Agnes pays – in 1688, 1793, 1847, 1940, 1980 and 2117. Will a prison of passion entrap all these poor souls forever?
Read: MIFF 2024: Bright Horizons Competition and Award films
Secret Mall Apartment
Secret Mall Apartment. Image: MIFF.
As chosen by MIFF Programmer Kate Jinx
American documentary filmmaker Jeremy Workman (Lily Topples the World) dives into a treasure trove of footage created by a group of activist artists in (illegal) residence in a mall back in 2003.
‘All my DIY days came flooding back to me, watching this film about a group of artists who covertly created a liveable unit in a shopping centre void in Rhode Island,’ Jinx says. ‘Raging against gentrification and the loss of multiple art spaces, their ambitious (and thankfully, well–documented!) project was both a lark and a beacon of creative spirit in a harsh, capitalist landscape.’
MIFF blurb: In 2003, eight Rhode Island artists set out to create a domestic dwelling in a hidden alcove of Providence Place Mall. Though it’s initially something of a lark, they end up living there until 2007, taking the project – and their lives within it – further than they ever thought they’d go. Seeing the complex as a symbol of failed gentrification and economic inequality, their gonzo act was a virtuous occupation of a building that blighted the local landscape.
Read: MIFF 2024: Australian films
Un rêve plus long que la nuit
Chosen by Program Manager Mia Falstein-Rush
Fairy tales get an eye-popping reimagining, replete with glitter-spouting phallus, in this dreamy 1976 classic from the late French monumental sculptor and filmmaker Niki De Saint Phalle. She also appears on screen alongside her daughter Laura Duke Condominas (Lancelot du Lac) in this racy reverie lovingly restored from the 16mm negatives with financial assistance from fashion house Dior.
‘Viewing this at the end of a long day of screenings at the New York Film Festival, I was sent into a dream state myself, unable to discern between a hobbled mind and the wonderous images glowing out into the dark,’ Falstein-Rush says. ‘I was completely swept up in the gorgeous cinematography and synth soundtrack [from counterculture filmmaker Peter Whitehead] that brings to life the fantastical and dark world of Niki de Saint Phalle.’
MIFF blurb: Sweet little Camélia drifts off to sleep wondering what it would be like to be grown-up. She awakens in a colourful dream-world run by a dragon, where a sorceress transforms her into a gorgeous woman. Now, she must open the Seven Doors of Mystery to find love … except behind some of these doors are a man selling death, a scary king who demands her as his bride and a mistress offering her sex work. By the time giant phalluses are exploding at the orgy in spurts of glitter and feathers, Camélia is learning the lesson of all fairytales: be careful what you wish for.
Back From the Ink: Restored Animated Shorts
Back From the Ink: Restored Animated Shorts. Image: MIFF.
Chosen by Program Coordinator Liam Carter
Cinema lovers Seth MacFarlane and Martin Scorsese backed this glowing reclamation of lost animated gems, including seven from the Fleischer brothers, famous for creating the magnificent Betty Boop.
‘Reaching into the depths of nostalgia to illuminate these classics in an incredible new light, this lovingly restored collection of whimsical pictures from pioneers of the medium offers a visual and sonic luxury rarely experienced in cinema,’ Carter says.
MIFF blurb: Back From the Ink, the first ever curated restoration of historically significant animated shorts from the 1920s to 1940s, is a profound work of cinema preservation from an unlikely union: the showrunner of Family Guy and one of the US’s greatest living directors. It includes a 1944 stop-motion ‘Puppetoon’ from George Pál, a 1939 Terrytoon directed by Mannie Davis, and seven short films, drawn from 1928 to 1939, by the Fleischer Brothers (creators of Betty Boop and Koko the Clown), which feature jazz-age collaborations with Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway. The nine animations were selected and restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation.
Crossing
Chosen by MIFF-lover and ScreenHub reviewer Stephen A Russell
By far the most luminous film I’ve seen all year, And Then We Danced director Levan Akin’s sophomore feature has haunted me since I caught it at Berlinale in February, where it picked up the Teddy Jury Award.
Featuring a towering performance from Georgian actor Mzia Arabuli, who plays a guarded woman grieving the recent loss of her sister who sets out to find her estranged niece, a trans woman, in the heaving throng of a sunlit-glimmering, continent-straddling Istanbul. Reluctantly teaming up abundantly energetic young man and, later, a queer community lawyer (newcomers Lucas Kankava’s Achi and trans actor Deniz Dumanli’s Evrim), this unlikely trio held my heart tight and set my hope alight.
MIFF blurb: Retired schoolteacher Lia deeply regrets not being a better ally to her estranged trans niece Tekla. Having promised her late sister that they would reconnect, Lia sets out to track down Tekla in the sprawling, transcontinental Turkish city. Her unlikely companions in this mission are hapless young man Achi and, in time, fearless lawyer and proud trans woman Evrim. As all three converge, what starts out as a road movie becomes more than a mere search for a loved one.
Read our reviews of MIFF highlights The Moogai and In Vitro and a guide to all the Australian films.
Visit the Melbourne International Film Festival website for tickets, times and more information.
