Festival Archive 1952-2019

The MIFF online archive contains 68 past editions of the festival (1952–2019) for you to browse or search through. We hope the archive will be a resource used by festival goers, film lovers, students, historians and whoever else would like to learn more about the types of films MIFF has screened over the years, or to track the trajectory of the festival’s curatorship, its directors and its scope.

Search options currently include: ‘Festival Year’, ‘Film Title’, ‘Director’ and ‘Country’.

A big thank you to our MIFF volunteers and partners who have helped make this archive possible.

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. With over 12,000 film synopses and more than 9000 directors’ names, there may appear a few typos here and there as our database comes to terms with special characters (my, there was a huge amount of Eastern European cinema screened at the festival back in the 60s!) and other items that need manual tweaking. Similarly, sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are slowly filling these in with further research. 


MIFF1999

MIFF1999 Festival Program

Festival Program
158 feature films and 116 short films were screened from 21 July to 8 August
Full Program

Program in Focus
MIFF's 1999 program was organised into 14 main sections. Program streams include International Panorama, Regional Features, Australian Showcase, Cinema of the Next Millennium, Journey to Iran, Mavericks: Bad Boys of Cinema, George Cukor, Cutting Edge Cartoons, Mozart, Experimental Cinema, Architecture & The City, Documentaries, as well as music docos and a section of films curated around the idea and influence of the millennium bug. The International Short Film Competition, a satellite interview with David Cronenberg, as well as lectures, forums, panels and Q&A sessions took place over the course of the festival.

Filmmaker in Focus
George Cukor
{focus George Cukor}

Opening Night Film
Siam Sunset (John Polson, 1999)
More

I am delighted to be presenting our 48th film festival to Melbourne audiences and on the cusp of the year 2000 it seems appropriate to look ahead. This year's theme,  'Future Directions in Film', sees the end of an era as very much a new beginning' Although the 20th century has often been referred to as the century of cinema, I do think that this industry has good reason to greet the third millennium with confidence. Cinema is the most frequented cultural activity in Australia and the industry has enjoyed considerable growth for more than a decade. Film continues to capture our imagination and declare its inventive spirit.

Multimedia is also presenting challenges to traditional narrative structure by allowing the viewer to interact and determine for themselves the directions they will take a work. David Cronenberg's eXistenz takes up this theme by introducing a daring new organic game system which is downloaded into humans, shattering the line that separates fantasy from reality. Cronenberg's future is one where technology will be so advanced that it borders on biology, encapsulating not just the physical body but the mind as well.

The question of what our future holds emerges as a central preoccupying theJ in this year's festival. This programme examines our visions, expectations and trepidations as we move into the third millennium.

The 2000 Seen By... series is a highly praised collection of films made by celebrated and emerging directors sharing their view of the world in the next century. The multimedia component of the festival, The Bug, looks at our paranoia about technology and asks whether the millennium bug really presents any political danger or whether it is just an unfortunate accident of software which forces us to feel human.

The festival presents a unique opportunity to explore themes preoccupying contemporary world cinema. I hope you find the visions inspiring and stimulating. It's been a real pleasure selecting them. I hope you enjoy the festival

Sandra Sdraulig
Executive Director

Introduction taken from the 1999 official guide

Sandra Sdraulig

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