MIFF Opening Night Gala 2015

Join us on the red carpet for all the excitement of MIFF’s Opening Night. Featuring special guests including director Paul Cox and stars David Wenham, Shahana Goswami and Hannah Fredericksen, it will be a memorable evening of cinema, celebrity and celebration. After the film, raise a glass of bubbly and mingle with the stars, where the festivities will continue, with drinks, canapés and music.

Force of Destiny
Australia 109 mins

"A moving and compassionate exploration of the human condition. One of Paul Cox’s most personal and emotional films. David Wenham gives an exceptional performance." – David Stratton

Revered Australian auteur and MIFF regular Paul Cox (Human Touch, MIFF 2004; Innocence, MIFF 2000) had a second chance at life when he received a liver transplant on Christmas Day 2009. This experience profoundly affected him and Force of Destiny, the first film in this new phase of his life, is in many ways an outpouring of his renewed love for humanity.

Highly autobiographical, Force of Destiny is a moving love story with a sumptuous aesthetic. David Wenham (working with Cox again for the first time since Molokai: The Story of Father Damien, MIFF 2000) stars as Robert, a renowned sculptor who is diagnosed with cancer of the liver. While reeling from this news he meets Maya, an Indian marine biologist who comes from a different world, a different reality. Robert’s nightmares and passion for Maya intensify as he confronts the agony and ecstasy of finding a love that has evaded him his entire life just as his body is about to be taken from him. New hope comes when he’s placed on the transplant waiting list.

Filmed in Melbourne and India, Force of Destiny is another screen gem from this beloved director, invested with the poignancy of an almost-true story.

Thursday 30 July at 7pm (doors open 6.30pm)

Full – film and party $150
Concession – film and party $140
MIFF Member – film and party $130

Dress: cocktail

Red Carpet, screening and official after party:
Hamer Hall
Arts Centre Melbourne

Find out more about the Talking Pictures panel event related to this screening.