Michelle Carey

Artistic Director

In 2018 we beckon you to see another side of film. This year’s festival is nothing if not a feast for all the senses!

Taste Japanese culinary delights with the new restoration of Juzo Itami’s Tampopo. Bathe your ears in the pulsating analogue synths of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive – presented in live concert by Hear My Eyes. Slip into some slinky couture with the Fashion x Cinema program, including new documentaries on Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen. As part of this year’s feast, we are delighted to offer a careful selection of accessible screenings that revel in the visual for our patrons who are Deaf and hard of hearing as well as screenings that provide accompanying audio description tracks.
In an era over-saturated with images and sounds, it’s vital to not take for granted what we experience. With so much passive screen exposure in our lives, MIFF reminds us why cinema matters. It’s the intensity of the big screen and absorbing the creative vision of a filmmaker with hundreds of fellow cinephiles by your side. It can be solitary and reflective, it can be social and entertaining. It can be all of these things at once. How to start? Come immerse yourself in the program, starting right here.
Think you know Nicolas Cage? Well, get up close and personal with this singular American actor in a manner that you will never experience again with our 12+ hour Cage-a-Thon. Also intense and epic are the penetrating, intimate filmed diaries of the late Anne Charlotte Robinson, in their Australian Premiere and curated for MIFF by the Harvard Film Archive, as part of our Experimentations program. And, for the first time in Melbourne, prepare yourselves for the sensual onslaught of the psychedelic, cine-loving films of Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani.

MIFF 2018 offers a particularly international Headliners section – the place to start if you want to see the big films of the year, including 11 direct from Cannes. Our Australian selection is wonderfully diverse – from blockbuster TV to incredible documentaries to the freshest low-budget indies from a new generation of filmmakers, as well as our Premiere Fund films, the latter all in world premiere. There are Sports Docs, the latest and most sensational in VR, documentaries that recast the past in History Uncovered, a selection of exciting New Voices from China.

We have a selection of new Australian Restorations, a program of newly restored classics in African Film Rediscovered and the cool poliziotteschi thrillers of the 60s and 70s in the Italo Crime retrospective. All this in addition to our regular offerings of the best features, shorts, documentaries, talks and guests from Australia and around the world.