Tiriki Onus thought he knew his grandfather Bill, until an unearthed film reel suggests he might have been the first ever Aboriginal filmmaker.

Short films by emerging filmmakers from Australia participating in the MIFF Accelerator Lab 2021. See the work of tomorrow’s hottest directors today.

Short films by emerging filmmakers from Australia participating in the MIFF Accelerator Lab 2021. See the work of tomorrow’s hottest directors today.

An aspiring Peruvian performer must decide whether she’s dancing for others or for herself.

Courtney Barnett pulls back the curtain in this intimate first-person exposition on creativity, vulnerability and artistic life on the road.

For Indigenous Australian rugby league players, a pre-game ‘unity dance’ is an important step towards celebrating their cultures and combating entrenched racism.

Zoe Terakes voices a sex-crazed twentysomething in this lurid fever dream of queerness in lockdown.

An unplanned pregnancy unites two very different Costa Rican women in unique ways.

A young Vietnamese-French woman is faced with the communist takeover of Saigon on 30 April 1975.

Sex is fodder for black comedy in this scathing portrayal of life in the age of COVID-19.

A bereaved single mother does battle with the Iranian justice system in this tense drama.

An African migrant living in Spain is confronted with the bitter meaning of ‘home’.

Amid Iran’s widespread 2019 floods, three young musicians set out for a career-making gig in Tehran. But as the water rises, their chances of making it on time diminish.

A chance meeting paves the way for a deeper connection.

Commune or cult? This epic documentary illuminates the Rajneesh sannyasin movement in 1980s Fremantle, as told by those who lived through it.

A mixed martial arts fighter discovers she’s pregnant in the lead-up to the most important fight of her career.

A collection of the best short films of the festival, as chosen by the MIFF Shorts Awards Jury and the MIFF Shorts Programmer.

Charlotte Rampling guides you through underwater caves filled with bioluminescent creatures in this SXSW Virtual Cinema Competition Audience Award winner.

Military rule fuses with ultra-modern digital technologies to open up an ethereal portal that transcends time.

Roam through Soviet ruins in this poetic dissection of a crumbled past and an always forward-looking future.

A couple’s date at a tucked-away hole-in-the-wall takes a turn for the ravenous.

Hot Docs award winner Todd Chandler examines disturbing evolutions in today’s USA, where schools operate in the shadow of mass shootings.

This ode to sport and friendship takes us to the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp, where two soccer-obsessed teens see the game as their way out.

This complex, evocative period piece about human disconnection invites you to a party in 1990s Belgrade – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume optional.

At the height of the ‘video nasty’ era, a tightly wound film censor begins to unravel in this clever and subversive ode to the genre.

This uplifting feast of a film goes behind the scenes of an Italian hotel-restaurant staffed by youngsters living with Down syndrome.

A long-lost masterpiece of 1970s Iranian cinema finally re-emerges on the big screen.

A sweet, touchingly funny tale about a working-class teen whose newfound passion for singing helps her connect with her deaf family in new ways.

Food lovers won’t be able to resist this tantalising story of a master ramen chef and his legendary Tokyo noodle shop.

For one family, a wholesome trip to New Zealand’s remote countryside turns into the stuff of nightmares.

The intricacies of a moment of connection are dwelt on in this meditative examination of male desire by Tsai Ming-liang.

A hypnotic portrait of a young couple surviving life in an off-the-beaten-track, opportunity-starved outback town.

An absurdist study of the human body as a limitless instrument for self-discovery.

This hypnotic exploration of a family’s psychological turmoil under the shadow of Thai history won the FIPRESCI Prize in this year’s IFFR competition.

A real-life mother–daughter duo play a semi-fictional mother–daughter duo struggling to make ends meet in this charismatic feminist class comedy.

An elegant, neorealist debut that captures the beating heart of Lagos in the stories of two local dreamers struggling with their city’s Kafkaesque capitalism.

The directorial debut from producer Tanith Glynn-Maloney reimagines the 1954 auditions for Charles Chauvel’s iconic final film.

A Bruce Lee martial-arts classic gets an Indigenous twist as the first feature film ever to be fully dubbed in an Aboriginal Australian language.

Enter the mind of the world’s greatest con man – and get that dough.

This riveting firsthand account tells the story behind the legendary band that helped inspire the alternative rock sound of the 90s.

This Gen Z Before Sunrise finds tender romance in youthful self-discovery.

Mytho-pagan eco horror meets fungi-infused body horror in the primordial South African jungle.

This true story of an acid attack survivor’s fight to alter her daughter’s destiny is an inspiring and heartwarming call-to-action.

Slow-cinema master Lav Diaz returns with another mordantly meditative piece – one that nabbed him Venice’s Orizzonti Best Director gong.

MIFF alumnus and Shorts Award winner Eddy Bell returns with an intimate and critical portrait of one of Australia’s worst droughts.

Subtitled A Very Human Tech Doc, this timely documentary exposes the true cost of the gig economy quietly powering our everyday lives.

An intricate psychological ode to simmering emotion amid unfettered separation anxiety, which took home two Encounters awards at the Berlinale.

A guided tour through art history as seen through the female gaze – and a savvy, subversive rejoinder to centuries of representation from the eyes of the male beholder.

Divorced, lonely and inept with the web, a 50-year-old man decides to try his hand at finding love online – with spectacularly catastrophic results.

In a world with extremes of gravity, Rosa must navigate what it means to feel emotional ups and downs.

Presented by Sir Ian McKellen and co–executive-produced by Elton John, this unflinching portrait reveals a human rights activist at once revered and notorious.

Winning a Special Mention at CPH:DOX, this moving, poignant film is a love letter to a deaf and blind brother from his younger sister.

The bold directorial debut of Portrait of a Lady on Fire actor Luàna Bajrami is a luminously kinetic depiction of teenage ennui and troublemaking.

Attempting to quell some tension, a mother and daughter head to the hot springs… but more heat isn’t what they need.

Meet Australia’s self-crowned “Queen of Honky-Tonk”: renegade country singer Wanita was born ready.

A collective springs to life in this radiant tribute to radical Black politics.

Moment and memory blend as you bear witness to a Samoan rite of passage.

Melbourne has never looked sleeker than in this low-key mumblecore piece.

Oliver Stone knows who really killed the president. Now, his new documentary sets out to convince you.

A young woman awakens to find herself in the midst of a living nightmare.

An engrossing profile of a little-known 60s blues and folk icon, executive-produced by Wim Wenders.

Prayers by day, dreams by night – a mother keeps her son safe.

Weave your way through the bustling streets and idyllic beaches of Lagos.

Ema star Mariana Di Girólamo is magnetically front and centre – literally – as a dangerous wannabe social media influencer in this dark drama.

Co-written by Christos Tsiolkas, this period drama depicts a newly-single father’s efforts to weather the turbulence of change – in his life and in the world around him.

An engrossing portrait of the rise and untimely demise of David McComb, the virtuosic frontman of Australian rock band The Triffids.

Vanessa Paradis, François Damiens and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi lead this charming, lovestruck comedy set in a port of northern France.

A lead turn reminiscent of Marlon Brando anchors this neo-realist look at the Maltese fishing industry.

Emma Dante adapts her own acclaimed play: a melancholy tale of five Sicilian sisters whose lives are forever changed by a trauma from their youth.

In this Brazilian Gothic cri de coeur, the murder of a trans woman reverberates in the lives of the people around her.

Göteborg’s 2021 Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award winner dives into personal memories that embody the persistence of life in the face of enormous tragedy.

A mysterious package reopens old wounds and breaks down walls of intergenerational silence in this drama about mothers and daughters, history and time.

Jason Di Rosso speaks to three directors whose intimate films, screening at MIFF 69, each shine a light on their own families – and therefore themselves.

Four documentarians discuss their MIFF 69 films that spotlight individuals who have carved out influential careers amid personal and professional struggles.

Bandar Band director Manijeh Hekmat discusses the films spotlighted in the New Iranian Cinema strand and the rise of filmmaking in this region.

A panel of filmmakers, academics and activists explore one of the prevalent documentary themes in this year’s festival: queer activism.

Dash Snow epitomised “live fast, die young”, ascending from New York’s fringe to the major international art scene during his brief existence.

This timely, intelligent and emotional examination of state-sanctioned violence reveals a disturbingly universal story.

In Jacqueline Lentzou’s exceptional feature debut, an already strained father–daughter relationship is put under pressure.

This sprawling, tender documentary captures the inspiring relationship between an unorthodox German schoolteacher and his culturally diverse teenage class.

Two brothers with diametrically opposed approaches to their faith are pitted against one another in this tense family drama.

A timber feller, kept awake by his infant child’s cries of hunger, encounters something perturbing in the woods.

Routine is the only thing keeping Nestor afloat.

You’re in excellent hands with this wicked class satire about a very special immigrant masseur and the affluent individuals who grow besotted with him.

Michael Beets depicts an elderly woman enacting the titular Japanese death ritual for her husband.

Dive into this erotic, sensorial experience that transforms spoken word into audiovisual landscapes.

A twentysomething has to grapple with the pressures of impending maturity as well as the ‘ninjababy’ that has snuck inside her seemingly undetected.

When the Victorian Government locks down his public-housing building, a teenager responsible for his mother’s welfare is pushed to the brink.

A narrative depiction of the events leading up to one of the darkest chapters in modern Australian history from MIFF Accelerator Lab alumnus director Justin Kurzel.

“It is as if Chantal Akerman, perhaps for the first time in her career, has revealed the core of her work and her wounds in the most naked of ways.” – Cinema Scope

Maliciously outed after his death, musician Billy Tipton is now a transmasculine icon.

Part road movie, part video essay, this lyrical tour-de-force from Angelo Madsen Minax finds catharsis in confronting family drama.

From the director of Golden Bear winner Fire at Sea comes an achingly poetic, humane meditation on life in the shadow of war and the Islamic State.

The lives of Indigenous women collide in this powerful feature debut, which takes aim at poverty, prejudice and the patriarchy.

Loneliness is operatic in the latest film by Renee Zhan.

Join a demon, a puppy and a rat in this stop-motion headtrip about a mysterious, magically summoned apple tree.

This winner of multiple Czech Lion awards as well as Venice’s UNICEF Award is a stunning, utterly harrowing indictment of humanity at its worst.

Melbourne’s iconic baroque homewares mogul, Franco Cozzo, is the subject of this delightful portrait that offers insights into furniture, family and the migrant experience.

A short-sighted boy uncovers family secrets in an intricate, Tim Burton–esque world.

Three elderly survivors of the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo fight against bureaucracy and indifference to ensure that the event and its victims are not forgotten.

Awarded IFFR’s top prize, this lean, arresting debut follows a primal father–son road trip across the arid landscapes of southern India.

Capturing the malaise of Chinese society at the tail end of the 20th century, Jia Zhang-ke’s restored feature debut is ripe for re-examination.

In this delightful slacker story, a young Parisian comic-book artist is on the hunt for stability, a career, self-confidence, love – but nothing seems to go her way.

Stuck in a holding pattern, two men attempt to break the cycle.

This adaptation of Jennifer Clement’s bestselling novel explores the visceral impact of Mexican drug cartels on the lives of three young girls.

This tense and timely docu-thriller, which won a Sundance award for vérité filmmaking, plunges into the chaos of Zimbabwe’s first democratic elections.

A Lynchian depiction of self-transformation in the social media age.

Nominated for Best International Feature Film at this year’s Oscars, this extraordinary account of a 1995 Bosnian massacre is powerful, essential viewing.

A deeply personal portrait becomes a reflection on Iran’s turbulent political history in this striking, formally innovative memoir.

This Sundance 2020 Audience Award winner is a revelatory, immersive adaptation of Naoki Higashida’s memoir of a neurodiverse life.

A troubled medical scholar pits herself against institutional sexism in this steely moral thriller selected for Un Certain Regard.

You always have to watch out for those early warning signs.

A teenager is faced with the choice between rising up to become the better man or debasing himself for acceptance.

Erupting with unforgettable images of Hawaii, this boundary-breaking essay film captures the splendour and turbulent colonial history of the island nation.

This unsettling chamber piece, while wearing the skin of a horror, is at heart a considered meditation on selflessness, loyalty and chronic illness.

This daring Sundance Directing Award winner tracks a band of volunteers out to rescue ISIS sex slaves from an infamous Syrian border camp.

Horrific real-world news story becomes giallo-inspired horror in this gleefully deranged interrogation of our conspiracy-fuelled, edgelord-filled times.

In the ruthless world of competitive table-setting, it’s knives at 20 places.

Laurie Anderson narrates the untold history of the women who blazed a trail through electronic music.

An intimidating encounter with a group of teens forces a 12-year-old to ponder her place in the world.

Laura Dern is unforgettable in this 1986 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner – now digitally restored – as a teen who pursues experiences she’s not really sure she wants.

Denis Côté’s witty, theatrical battle of the sexes turns social distancing into an exercise in mutual estrangement.

Tradition and technology meet head-on in this tense coming-of-age drama about two Egyptian teens and a web of deceptions.

This ultra-gory animated fantasy is a chaotic ride perfectly calibrated for your inner 1980s teenage dirtbag.

This DOK Leipzig Silver Dove for Short Documentary and Animated Film winner grapples with China’s one-child policy through a story about two friends.

Jillian Nguyen and Mark Coles Smith star as a Chinese erotic dancer and an Aboriginal farmhand in this 1920s period drama.

Hot Docs 2020’s Best International Feature Documentary winner offers a dog’s-eye view of life in Istanbul.

Co-executive-produced by Ian Thorpe, this sports drama centres on a teenager fighting to stay afloat in the world of competitive swimming – and in his family life.

Zoe Terakes and Brenna Harding star as best friends mutually overcoming a tragedy.

A middle-aged woman cares for her elderly father, whose will to live is on the wane.

Be swept up by Beethoven, Bernstein and Mahler in this joyous, majestic work.

Questions of morality and duty play out against the backdrop of the Iranian justice system in the 2020 Berlinale’s Golden Bear winner.

Winner of Best First Appearance at IDFA 2020, this formally bold documentary traces a Kurdish-Ukrainian young man’s experiences of an endless cycle of war and peace.

Buckle up for the wildest, queerest car-fetish body-horror fable ever to win the Cannes Palme d’Or.

Rising alt-comedy star Patti Harrison joins Ed Helms in this wry surrogate-pregnancy comedy that upends traditional gender dynamics and subverts expectations.

A tense mother–daughter survival story that paints an empathetic picture of outsider life across the subways and streets of New York City.

After her father unexpectedly hits her, a young girl decides to toughen up.

A family unravels while road-tripping near Death Valley in the California desert.

A Sydney magician devises a stunt to disappear Uluru, but is his dream of making it big as illusory as his planned vanishing act?

A French couple travelling by campervan around Australia discover their relationship is at a crossroads.

Starring Pamela Rabe, Margot Nash’s acclaimed first feature – now gloriously restored – is a must for the big screen.

Bill Morrison revisits lesser-known chapters of Soviet film history in this hypnotic fever dream that melds art and archive.

How do you get the world’s biggest rock band to play in your hometown? Become the world’s biggest rock band.

This Berlinale FIPRESCI Prize winner is a romantic, Kafkaesque fable full of poignant whimsy and playful imagery.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa makes his first foray into period filmmaking with a twisty, Hitchcockian tale of love and betrayal in WWII, which earned him a 2020 Silver Lion.

A Noongar high school student struggles to perform a Shakespearean sonnet for her drama class.

Artist, outsider, writer, queer activist. David Wojnarowicz was all of these things and more, as Chris McKim captures in his fiery documentary.

Joachim Trier’s latest – winner of Best Actress at Cannes – is an elegant, playful character study about a young woman’s existential crisis.

Jafar Panahi, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Laura Poitras and other global cinema heavyweights reflect on 2020 in this sweeping anthology film for the COVID age.

Yael Stone and Emily Barclay star as frenemy sisters in this sibling dramedy by Madeleine Gottlieb.

An infamous tweetstorm about a wild, pole-dancing Florida road trip has become one of the most hotly anticipated movies of the year.