MIFF Play

Discover the musical legacy and enduring friendship between celebrated Papuan musician George Telek and Not Drowning, Waving’s David Bridie.

Love seeps through the cracks in this touching tale of same-sex desire in metropolitan Nigeria, which won the Berlinale’s Teddy Award.

This dryly humorous, Wiseman-esque film about an esteemed Czech art school asks: who gets to decide what art is?

In this chilling political coming-of-age film, a young housekeeper is drawn into the sinister orbit of his influential boss.

An enchanting animated take on Haruki Murakami’s short stories starring a gregarious talking frog, an existential bank teller and an elusive cat.

Deep in the US’s Catskill Mountains of the 50s and 60s sat a refuge for transgender women and cross-dressing men to experience life without fear.

Restored by the National Film and Sound Archive, this film recounts how a haven of Indigenous dance and activism arose from segregated postwar Perth.

Frederick Wiseman’s third foray into dramatic features centres on Sophia Tolstoy’s complicated marriage to her novelist husband.

In this Kafkaesque comedy for the selfie age, a woman must confront just what makes her identity her own after her face abruptly changes overnight.

Three children spread their wings as they farewell their parents and enter a boarding school for students who are blind or have low vision.

A maximalist, kaleidoscopic visual essay of hurt and healing, and a one-of-a-kind statement of bodily sovereignty from wunderkind Fox Maxy.

This hypnotic, transcendental debut feature follows a young man’s mystical journey across a beguiling rural Vietnam.

Naturalistic and brimming with empathy, this debut drama unfolds over 24 hours in a marginalised Muslim community in India.

Mark Coles Smith (Sweet As) faces down a traumatic event from his past in the hope of helping young First Nations men in the Kimberley.

A rollicking deep dive into the life of one of rock ’n’ roll’s most exhilarating personalities, whose queerness was hidden in plain sight.

A SXSW Audience Award winner, this doc traces the unlikely ascendancy of one of rock’s most influential yet under-sung figures: Pavement’s Gary Young.

MIFF Ambassador Robert Connolly presents a radiant 4K restoration of his debut feature: an entertaining, anti-capitalist caper of greed and deception.

A dazzling 4K restoration of Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien’s sensual 2001 tale of an adrift bar hostess at the turn of the millennium.

Moving cities is the perfect excuse to throw a party … and unpack some awkward home truths.

Abandoned by an indifferent government, a remote Siberian village stands united in the face of a massive forest fire that threatens its future.

This time capsule of an extraordinary unseen history is a work of documentation and preservation – both of a moment in time and of the moving image.

Four First Nations trailblazers – a senator, a magistrate, a media icon and a poet – put everything on the line for a brighter future.

Four First Nations trailblazers – a senator, a magistrate, a media icon and a poet – put everything on the line for a brighter future.

Man Ray’s classic shorts are reimagined for their 100th anniversary alongside an ecstatic soundtrack from SQÜRL members Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan.

Witchcraft, revenge and Indigenous rancour swell in this atmospheric, anti-colonial bildungsroman set in 19th-century Chile.

The supernatural encroaches on a woman’s simple existence in this FIPRESCI Prize–winning tale of folklore, deception and retribution.

Cartoon villain, master manipulator, traitor or true patriot? You decide in this engrossing portrait of Donald Trump’s wily adviser Roger Stone.

A deft exploration of the brutal scars of colonialism whose genre twists and turns give new meaning to ‘the horror of war’.

This dazzling rabbit hole of a film, which evokes cinephile Everest La Flor (MIFF 2019), sketches the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of a woman’s disappearance.

Described by its maker as a “meditation on access and loss”, this trailblazing film reframes cinema from a d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing perspective.

Activist and filmmaker George Gittoes follows the frontline artists daring to stand up to the Russian invasions of Ukraine and Afghanistan.

In this gorgeous new 4K restoration, Hungarian slow-cinema master Béla Tarr finds metaphysical horror in a nascent revolution.

Bold works from emerging Australian and New Zealand filmmakers.

Preview the next generation of homegrown directors.

Impassioned narratives from this continent’s best.

A collection of the best short films from the festival, as chosen by the MIFF Shorts Awards jury and the MIFF Shorts programmers.

The winner of the 2023 Cannes Short Film Palme d’Or is a colourful orgy of ennui and desire.

A deeply moving story of ordinary grief experienced in extraordinary circumstances.

Australian New Wave stalwart Bruce Spence (Stork; Mad Max 2) stars as a senile man haunted by events he can’t recall.

A disgraced former football star finds himself at a dangerous crossroads after witnessing a murder.

Flirtation and violence are dangerous bedfellows in a budding teen romance.

Two loners from different worlds find fleeting intimacy in this enchanting and stylish short film.

A maximalist mixtape of videogames, pop music and red paint, at once joyous and disruptive.

A twisted tale of broken legs, painkillers and phone sex that explores the dark heart of transactional relationships – and the sick thrill of a scam.

‘Would you choose them as your mates?’ asks this dark and dreamlike snapshot of a teenage friendship group.

A revisionist western inspired by author Judith Wright’s family history – the first narrative work to feature the Barada and Darumbal languages.

Footage of orbs in the skies of the Blue Mountains raises questions over the unexplained disappearance of the filmmaker who recorded them.

A 10-year-old girl becomes newly aware of her cultural identity in this impressive debut that received a Tribeca Narrative Short Special Jury Mention.

Making mixtapes becomes a means of survival for a troubled 12-year-old Italian-American in this ferociously energetic, 80s-set coming-of-age story.

From Cannes Critics’ Week comes a masterful portrait of an ostracised immigrant searching for salvation.

In this award-winning film, two strangers are brought together by shared grief, experienced from vastly different perspectives.

A multi-award-winning Melbourne director shows how trauma can radically reconfigure our worldview.

Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Elma Kris and Waangenga Blanco lead this film about a Torres Strait Islander woman whisked away from her thankless job.

A wildly imaginative, hilarious and heartbreaking trip into a teenage girl’s mind, depicted as a phantasmagoria of self-loathing and angst.

This Berlinale Silver Bear Jury Prize (Short Film) and Teddy Award for Best Short Film winner depicts a Yankunytjatjara man’s search for belonging.

In this meditation on the Australian migrant community, a Filipino teen follows his mum through the bleak landscape of Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Mud Crab director David Robinson-Smith returns with a stirring cine-poem about the rental crisis, starring Thom Green (Of an Age).