August 9 2024

MIFF - Melbourne International Film Festival

The biggest film festival of the calendar is here again. As always it's a chance to catch the latest and best of film from around the world, and to enjoy a wide range of events. 

 

Melbourne International Film Festival

8-25 August

Numerous locations around Melbourne, also 8 regional venues

For all info, and trailers of the films,  visit www.miff.com.au

I've been fortunate to preview quite a number of these fine films, and must declare that each one of them, all so different, is totally worth seeing. 

Memory 

Dir: Michel Franco

103 mins

Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) is a social worker and recovering alcoholic. She leads an ordered life with teenage daughter Anna. One day at a school reunion she is followed home by Saul (Peter Sarsgaard), a man with early onset dementia who is under the care of his brother Isaac. What ensues will change both Saul's and Sylvia's lives forever. This film, a nominee for the Golden Lion (2023), is  a delicate and tender examination of an unexpected and unlikely connection between two damaged people. Chastain and Sarsgaard are terrific together. Other significant themes add to the depth and intensity of the plotting. 

Every Little Thing 

Dir: Sally Aitken

93 mins

Bird lovers should not miss this shimmering documentary about hummingbirds, and a big-hearted woman from Los Angeles who devotes her life to caring for those creatures which fall from the nest or are otherwise injured. Terry Masear has a homemade bird hospital, and the filmmaker sets up her camera to track the progress of several feathered friends, from admission to release. The close-ups of the amazing avians are stunning and their tiny personalities utterly endearing.  

You Should Have Been Here Yesterday

Dir: Jolyon Hoff

100 mins

This Aussie doco is a homage to the birth of the surf culture in Australia in the 1960s. Before the sport gained worldwide attention, it attracted people looking for an alternate lifestyle, and many filmmakers at the time made movies aimed at that particular market. The documentary is compiled from 200 hours of surf footage, and stunningly captures a moment in time, along with a piece of film history many non-surfers (and maybe even film reviewers!) will not be aware of. A great trip down memory lane.

Future Council 

Dir: Damon Gameau

80 mins

The director takes 8 amazing kids in a bus on a journey to visit the CEOs of big companies, and to present their ideas on how to solve the climate crisis. A full review of this delightful and important film will be out upon its mainstream release next year. 

My Sunshine 

Dir: Hiroshi Okuyama

100 mins

Takuya is a sensitive young boy ill-suited to his role in the ice hockey team in Hokkaido. But he does yearn to figure skate. Coach Arakawa is training Sakura, a talented young girl, and decides to pair Takuya up with her to learn the art of figure skating. This gentle,  understated and sweet film handles the yearnings and insecurities of growing up, along with the harsh realities of life that could spoil the tentative bond between the trio. Lovely cinematography and soundtrack add to a moving story. 

I Shall Not Hate 

Dir: Tal Barda

95 mins

Few films could be as relevant at this moment in Middle East history as this emotionally devastating documentary. It features Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, born in a Gaza refugee camp and nominated for a Nobel peace prize many times. He became a doctor and worked in an Israeli hospital, advocating medicine and health as a pathway to peace. But when tragedy struck, Israeli shells taking the lives of three of his daughters, he chose not to hate, but to persevere in trying to generate understanding and peace. I confess to sobbing uncontrollably during this film, and think if only people in power could see it, there might be hope for the world. 

Animale 

Dir: Emma Benestan

98 mins

Nejma (Oulaya Amamra) works alongside a bunch of men on a cattle farm in the Camargue in the south of France. Bull running is a popular tourist attraction that raises money for the farm, and Nejma desperately wants to be part of this male-dominated, dangerous sport. After a drunken night ends with Nejma unsure of what happened, men start dying, seemingly the victims of a rogue bull. An inspired and creative mish-mash of genres - part horror, part human drama - this evocative and frightening film is impressive in its scripting, acting and broody cinematography. Its strong feminist undercurrent packs a mighty punch.

  

All We Imagine as Light

Dir: Payal Kapadia

115 mins

Prabha is a nurse working in a Mumbai hospital in the field of women's health, She shares a room with fellow nurse Anu, who is secretly dating a Muslim boy. Prabha's husband from an arranged marriage is in Germany and she seems at a loss as to her place in the world. When hospital cook Parvaty is evicted from her Mumbai home, the two women accompany her back to her village. This powerful, yet mysterious, film captures so much about the paradoxes of life in modern India - women's place, Hindu/Muslim conflict, old ways vs new. With a haunting soundtrack and camera work that captures Mumbai and the monsoon, it is atmospheric, beautiful and intensely humanistic. 

MIFF and every one of these films comes wholeheartedly recommended.