As you will read below, the Victorian Government generously granted MIFF extra financial assistance in the recent State budget. We are enormously grateful for this vote of confidence. It will enable us to launch an official industry programme – 37 South: Bridging the Gap – and to implement the MIFF Film Investment Fund as a ‘second door' for Victorian filmmakers. With a little bit of luck, we hope to screen the first results of this fund at MIFF next year. 

It's a privilege and an honour to be at the helm of this organisation at such a critical time in its development. This year, the programme sees the return of some old favourites along with some new programming slots – in particular, a new experiment for the younger members of our community called Next Gen and a new focus on Indigenous filmmaking from around the globe, World Stories. There is much to see and do, impossible to condense in this space, so take your time to go through the programme in detail and enjoy.

I'm immensely grateful to all those who have helped me through this first year, in particular to the MIFF staff and to the highly active and supportive MIFF board. Thank you all.

Richard Moore
Executive Director 

 

MIFF, without stating the obvious, is pleasurably no longer the film calendar's best-kept secret. And its global reputation... astonishing... It's spoken of in hushed tones with glowing exhilaration. 

Even though I've hung out with the provocative, mercurial and entrepreneurial cinematic brain of that congenial party-boy and sly cineaste James Hewison for the past six years, the baton has now been passed onto an equally subversive adventurer in the shape of Richard Moore and we all heartily welcome him to this unique festival. Let's truly assess what we've got. Cannes, Berlin, Toronto and Venice - they all launch the big rockets… Hollywood monoliths, edgy art-house monthly flavour alumni, aberrant thrilling one-offs, controversial prizes, red carpet mania bouncing between timeless artistry and cheap stunts. MIFF is a different deal. We showcase global cinema in the relative sanity of the lower hemisphere. The quintessential MIFF-goer knows and has seriously discovered comprehensive films and moviemaking on all levels – documentaries, features, shorts – homegrown and from Asia, the Middle East, South America, Korea… you name it. Major creative identities have been programmed, then visited and blown us away. Thank you, James, for all of that. And now Richard is opening up Africa. Time to genuinely explore!

Global village? In my youth, it seemed like a reductive term… perhaps we were all slowly becoming the same. Great global cinema proves how different we all really are. The world is not shrinking. It's expanding, demandingly and exponentially. So much to learn, to understand. So much, cocooned in the dark for a couple of hours, to embrace and to treasure.

Geoffrey Rush
MIFF Patron

Introduction taken from the 2007 official guide

Festival Program
260 feature films and 135 short films were screened from 25 July to 12 August
Full Program

Program in Focus
The 55th MIFF - Richard Moore's first - program featured a focus on debut films from European directors and a reinvigorated Israel cinema industry. Magnum in Motion presented a collection of 19 documentary films centered on the work of the world's most prestigious photographic agency. African cinema was put into the spotlight. Homage was paid to award-winning Japanese writer, director Hirokazu Kore-eda. Forbidden Pleasures focused on human sexuality, and a collection of horror films was screened. 

Filmmaker in Focus
Shohei Imamura
{focus Shohei Imamura}

Opening Night Film
Sicko (Michael Moore, 2007)  
More

Image Gallery

Films

MIFF 2007
MIFF 2007

ANIMALIA

ANimalia
Director David Scott
MIFF 2007
MIFF 2007

BLIND MOUNTAIN

MANG SHAN
Director Yang Li
MIFF 2007
UK
MIFF 2007
MIFF 2007
MIFF 2007
MIFF 2007
MIFF 2007

IN THE COMPANY OF ACTORS

In The Company of Actors
Director Ian Darling
MIFF 2007

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS

De fortabte sjaeles ø
MIFF 2007

Lady On The Threshold, The

LA DAMA EN EL UMBRAL
Director Jorge Dayas
MIFF 2007

SAVAGE GRACE

les meduses
Director Tom Kalin
MIFF 2007
USA
MIFF 2007
USA
MIFF 2007

WASTED

MEVUZBAZIM
Director Nurit Kedar
MIFF 2007
MIFF 2007
MIFF 2007

Yours Truly

YOURS TRULY
UK
MIFF 2007

From the Festival Files

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The magic of the festival is reached through its screens. These are places and spaces that captivate our attention, providing windows where films come to life before our eyes. As portals to the world, the festival’s screens allow us to travel the globe, move through time, and see through another’s eyes. … Yet these screens also remind us of home. They are fixed in place, in our memories and in o …

The Living Festival

What would a festival be without its audience? There wouldn’t be a festival at all! … People are the beating heart of MIFF. It was the coming together of some 800 people in Olinda in 1952 that gave birth to the Melbourne Film Festival. Since that unanticipated outpouring of community love for film, MIFF has become an annual gathering space for film enthusiasts and the cine-curious from Melbourne …