Loneliness and longing collide in this haunted nocturnal vision of a desolate Melbourne.

A Japanese man lovingly tends to a house full of plants. A Chinese immigrant wears a penguin costume at work due to social anxiety. And a kidnapper bonds with the hostage she keeps locked up in a suitcase. Melbourne has never looked so mysterious as in this 16mm-shot, vaporwave/shoegaze-scored shrine to solitude steeped in classic Wong Kar-wai, early Tsai Ming-liang and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Millennium Mambo (MIFF 2002 & 2023).