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. 


MIFF2003

MIFF2003 Festival Program

Festival Program
215 feature films and 124 short films were screened from 23 July to 10 August
Full Program

Program in Focus
The 52nd MIFF program's curatorial umbrellas include International Panorama, New Russian Cinema, Uncompromising French Film, Martial Arts in Focus, Discoveries from India, Music on Film, Raw Japanese Cinema and Asian films in Regional Focus. Emergence: The Latest Generation of Women Filmmakers from the East included films from Israel, Iran, South Korea and China. A series of forums, panels, lectures and Q&A sessions took place. Mach 03, a program designed as a youth entry point into MIFF, boasted high-energy, raw and street-savvy features, documentaries and exclusive live events. 

Filmmaker in Focus
Abbas Kiarostami. A retrospective of the filmmaker's work was screened. 
{focus Abbas Kiarostami}

Opening Night Film
Japanese Story (Sue Brooks, 2003)
Harvie Krumpet (Adam Elliot)
More

Welcome to the 52nd edition of the Melbourne International Film Festival. I promise that your senses will be stimulated as we traverse the myriad of cinema cultures and their filmmakers: from the delirious Canadian visionary Guy Maddin to new voices from Japan in Brain Monkey Sushi. The Festival is truly a 'World Citizen'.

It is timely that master Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami will travel from Tehran to Melbourne to present this year's centrepiece selection of his profoundly humanist work.

The MIFF 2003 programme peers beyond the glitter of the Bollywood behemoth, traces the arc of Asian martial arts films into recent Western mainstream acceptance and reveals the 'frissons' of challenging new French cinema.  

Pivotal to this Festival is Australian film and the yields this year are as rich as they are diverse. Whether watching new work from Varda, Panahi and Haneke or revelations by newcomers Barmak, Li and Saville, we see that the people in these films are not much different from us.

My thanks to the dedicated Festival staff. I'd like to acknowledge the contribution of the MIFF Chair and Board, MIFF members and supporters, including the film community, sponsors and of course particularly filmmakers themselves.

James Hewison
Executive Director

Introduction taken from the 2003 official guide

James Hewison

Select Festival

Search the film archive