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Revue
Sweet Nothings: Fwends and the Tenuous Trappings of Mumblecore
Critics Campus 2025 participant Fred Pryce dissects the stylistic and storytelling choices behind Sophie Somerville’s decidedly DIY film Fwends, about two slacker pals who hang out and horse around upon reuniting in Melbourne.
Iron Winter – Four Ways
Kasimir Burgess’s mesmerising documentary Iron Winter is approached from four different angles by MIFF 2025 Critics Campus participants Monique Nair, Claire Ollivain, Thomas Phillips and Armani Hollindale.
Two Times João Liberada – Four Ways
Paula Tomás Marques’s gloriously form-exploding film Two Times João Liberada is approached from four different angles by MIFF 2025 Critics Campus participants Amelia Leonard, Parth Rahatekar, Fred Pryce and Sophie Terakes.
The Star Shoots First: Kristen Stewart’s The Chronology of Water
Critics Campus 2025 participant Armani Hollindale dives into the themes, motifs and inspirations, as well as the inter-bleeding between representation and reality, that flow within Kristen Stewart’s feature directorial debut The Chronology of Water.
Navigating Dystopia: Neo Sora’s Happyend
Critics Campus 2025 participant Amelia Leonard discusses Happyend’s masterfully tightrope-treading portrayals of youth, rebellion and coming of age amid an increasingly oppressive near-future Japan.
Staged Realities: Frederick Wiseman’s Model
Critics Campus 2025 participant Thomas Phillips examines the ambivalent documentation of aesthetics and artifice, glamour and illusion, and the industry’s manufacturing of desire in Model, Frederick Wiseman’s revelatory film about fashion.
Harboured Complexity: Labour, Liminality and Life in Nightshift
Critics Campus 2025 participant Monique Nair traverses the oneiric, artfully punk milieu of Robina Rose’s third and final film, Nightshift: a mood piece that illuminates the hidden worlds of hotel guests and staff.
Violent Delight: The Dangers of Obsession in The Ice Tower
Critics Campus 2025 participant Sophie Terakes unpacks the entrancing depictions of devotion, emotional displacement and desire in Lucile Hadžihalilović’s film.
Cinema Ablaze With New Life: Bi Gan’s Resurrection
Critics Campus 2025 participant Claire Ollivain delves into the metatextual sensorial epic that is Bi Gan’s Resurrection, finding that the film champions cinephilia and the experiential in a world of simplistic and subjugating screens.
Thwarted Ambitions: Sumitra Peries’s The Girls and Young Womanhood in a Changing Sri Lanka
Guest author Vyshnavee Wijekumar writes on the historical context behind the 1977 Sri Lankan feature, screening as part of MIFF’s Restorations strand.
Dark Illusions: Niki de Saint Phalle’s Un rêve plus long que la nuit
Critics Campus 2024 participant Isabella Gullifer-Laurie writes on Niki de Saint Phalle’s 1976 feature, a surreal journey into a whimsical, frightening and aggressively sexualised dream world.