As Melbourne’s glittering showcase of homegrown cinema and international hits returns, Stephen A Russell picks ten of the most intriguing films to aid your MIFF scheduling.
How can the 71st Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) top last year’s glorious return to cinemas just in the nick of time to celebrate their 70th-anniversary bash? By artistic director Al Cossar and the team assembling one of their mightiest line-ups ever, absolutely stacked with homegrown heroes, Cannes darlings plus weird and wonderful oddities, that’s how!
Cate Blanchett executive produced fast-rising filmmaker Noora Niasari’s opening night gala movie Shayda. The Tehran-born, Melbourne-based filmmaker’s searing, ‘90s-set drama was a big hit at Sundance, detailing the trials of an Iranian refugee (Holy Spider lead Zar Amir Ebrahimi) trying to escape the grips of an abusive husband. So much gold follows this powerful opening gambit before you get to closing night mockumentary comedy Theater Camp via a blood-drenched retrospective of Italian giallo master Dario Argento’s most spectacularly wicked dreamscapes.
Most of our faves from the Sydney Film Festival pop up, and here are ten more films we’re hanging to see.
The Rooster
Appearing in contention alongside Shayda in the sophomore outing of MIFF’s Bright Horizons competition for first and second features, Elvis actor Mark Leonard Winter’s intriguing debut casts Clickbait lead Phoenix Raei as Dan, a small-town cop driven to uncover the truth behind the murder of his mate, discovered in a shallow grave.
Last seen by Hugo Weaving’s short-fused, ping pong and jazz-playing recluse, camping out in the forest, Dan follows his lead into the woods as their oddball chemistry blossoms into an unlikely friendship forged in the darkest hour. We can’t wait to see one of our favourite rising stars go toe-to-toe with acting royalty.
La Chimera
Forget Lara Croft(s) or ageing Indy, the latest mind-tripping magic from Happy as Lazzaro director Alice Rohrwacher casts The Crown and God’s Own Country star Josh O’Connor as a rascally rogue ostensibly after assembling a grave robbing gang to exhume Etruscan treasure for a tidy packet. But he has a far more mystical (hopefully not alien) reason for getting down amongst the dirt of ancient secrets.
Winging its way from Cannes to MIFF, this glittering gem also features legendary Italian actor Isabella Rossellini and the director’s sister Alba, who also popped up in The Wonders.
The Eternal Daughter
If your favourite character in British auteur Joanna Hogg’s two-part movie The Souvenir was sublime being Tilda Swinton as artsy mum Rosalind, you’re in for a real treat here as she shows up again front and centre here. But in a nifty metatextual switcheroo so beloved of Hogg, continuing to plumb her most intimate memories here, Swinton also plays an older version of her filmmaker daughter, depicted in The Souvenir and its sequel by her actual daughter Honor.
If that second part felt like a haunting of the first, then this third entry pushes further into that genre, set in a spooky old Welsh mansion hotel shrouded in Hammer Horror-like mist and green lighting.
Femme
An absolute cracker exploding onto the scene at Berlinale with a hail of glitter and gut punches, this London-set neo-noir twits the knife in deep. A Hitchcock-worthy set-up casts Misfits star Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as a fierce drag queen licking his wounds who spies a unique opportunity to strike back at his homophobic attacker (1917’s George Mackay) when he spies the violent closet case in a gay sauna while in off-duty blokey gear.
Rather than go in for the kill at the first opportunity, with a revenge porn set-up on the cards, what actually unfurls is a diabolical erotic thriller that takes a dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.
BlackBerry
If you’re intrigued by the recent spate of comedy-infused capitalism is king product origin stories that include Air and Tetris, then we can heartily recommend this infinitely superior mockumentary that berthed at Berlinale.
Canadian actor and director Matt Johnson (Operation Avalanche) joins How To Train Your Dragon voice artist Jay Baruchel and an intensely bushy-eyebrowed Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) in this savagely funny rise and fall piss-take of the all-but-forgotten smartphone that came just before Apple conquered the world.
The Adults
If estranged siblings unthawing their chilly relationship Skeleton Twins-stye is more your jam, you might dig Person to Person director Dustin Guy Defa’s latest offering. Another Berlinale highlight, it casts Scott Pilgrim vs. the World lead Michael Cera as a gambling addict who returns to his hometown after an age away following the death of his mum, only to butt heads with his sisters, as played by Hannah Gross (Mindhunter) and Sophia Lillis (Asteroid City).
Once super-tight, they might be again if only they can navigate through emotional roadblocks back to their cartoon voice-deploying shenanigans.
Sleep
If you can count on the twisted genius of Parasite and The Host director Bong Joon-ho as a trusted mentor figure, then you can bet your bottom dollar we’re pumped to see what his former assistant director protégé Jason Yu can do with his fright night feature debut which bowed at Cannes—tapping Parasite’s Lee Sun-kyun and Train to Busan lead Jung Yu-mi as a young couple expecting a baby.
When he starts slumping into a deep but restless sleep at any given moment, the things that go bump in the night begin to feel far less like figments of her imagination and a lot more like something terrible lurking in the corners of their dinky apartment.
Last Summer
Whether terrifying us to the point of passing out as a mum attempting to flee domestic violence in Custody, or fending off alien robodogs in streaming series War of the Worlds, acclaimed French actor Léa Drucker always astounds. Consider our interest piqued, then, when she teamed up with patriarchy-smashing, taboo-busting filmmaker Catherine Breillat (Romance) for this Cannes-berthing eyebrow-raiser.
A remake of Danish film Queen of Hearts, Drucker plays a woman falling out of love with her husband (an also excellent Olivier Rabourdin) and into lust with her until recently AWOL stepson (newcomer Samuel Kircher).
All the Colours of the World are Between Black and White
One of the joys of cinema surfing during MIFF is the opportunity to soak up films from corners of the world we too rarely get a window into. That’s why we’re psyched for UK-based, Nigerian-born director Babatunde Apalowo feature debut, which sees him head back to Lagos to tackle the emotional aftermath of the death of a dear friend lynched for being homosexual.
A timely reminder that not all the world has embraced progress on LGBTIQA+ freedom (and that what was won here can be lost), it casts newcomers Tope Tedela and Riyo David as would-be lovers whose halting dalliance is threatened by the desires of Martha Ehinome Orhiere’s peeping neighbour.
Disco Boy
A glimmering highlight of Berlinale, this mesmerising debut feature from Italian filmmaker Giacomo Abbruzzese is set to a pulsating score and features rising star Franz Rogowski as an eastern European asylum seeker who winds his way to Paris via personal tragedy to sign up for the Foreign Legion and secure citizenship.
When this possible path to freedom mires him in a waking nightmare in the Niger Delta, pitted against startling newcomer Morr Ndiay’s mercenary, the heart of colonial darkness he witnesses may consume him. Also in competition for Bright Horizons, it’s dazzling stuff (also check out Rogowski in Ira Sachs’ luminous Passages).
