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

Accelerator Shorts 1
Short films by emerging filmmakers from Australia participating in the MIFF Accelerator Lab 2021. See the work of tomorrow’s hottest directors today.

Accelerator Shorts 2
Short films by emerging filmmakers from Australia participating in the MIFF Accelerator Lab 2021. See the work of tomorrow’s hottest directors today.

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

All Light, Everywhere
A visionary exploration of the inherent biases in surveillance technology from one of North America’s most fascinating and inventive documentary filmmakers.

Animation Shorts

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

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

Are You Still Watching?
Zoe Terakes voices a sex-crazed twentysomething in this lurid fever dream of queerness in lockdown.

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

Australian Shorts

Azor

Babi Yar. Context
The perpetration and subsequent cover-up of one of the 20th century’s worst mass murders are examined in detail in Sergei Loznitsa’s remarkable archival collage.

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

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
Sex is fodder for black comedy in this scathing portrayal of life in the age of COVID-19.

Ballad of a White Cow
A bereaved single mother does battle with the Iranian justice system in this tense drama.

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

Bandar Band
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.

Beautiful They
A chance meeting paves the way for a deeper connection.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Captains of Zaatari
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.

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

Censor
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.

Center Stage
A unique melding of biopic and biographical documentary, this 90s classic – sumptuously restored in time for its 30th anniversary – pays tribute to a vanished era of cinema.

Chef Antonio's Recipes for Revolution
This uplifting feast of a film goes behind the scenes of an Italian hotel-restaurant staffed by youngsters living with Down syndrome.

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

CODA
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.

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

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

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

Dear Comrades!
A Soviet official finds her loyalty to the regime tested when her daughter goes missing in the aftermath of a massacre.

Devotion: A Film About Ogawa Productions
Legendary American lesbian feminist filmmaker Barbara Hammer turns her lens to the inner workings of Japanese filmmaking collective Ogawa Productions.

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

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

The Edge of Daybreak
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.

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

Eyimofe (This is My Desire)
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.

Faya Dayi
In an Ethiopian community dependent on its cash crop in more ways than one, a new generation’s furtive hopes slip through the cracks.

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

Fist of Fury Noongar Daa
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.

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

Freakscene – The Story of Dinosaur Jr.
This riveting firsthand account tells the story behind the legendary band that helped inspire the alternative rock sound of the 90s.

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

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

Gaza Mon Amour

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

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

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

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

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

Girls | Museum
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.

Glen
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.

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

Hating Peter Tatchell
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.

He's My Brother
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 Hill Where Lionesses Roar
The bold directorial debut of Portrait of a Lady on Fire actor Luàna Bajrami is a luminously kinetic depiction of teenage ennui and troublemaking.

Hopper/Welles

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

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

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

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

I Was a Simple Man
Constance Wu stars in this elegiac Hawaiian drama as the late wife of a man haunted by his past and slowly becoming a spectre in the present.

Jeanette Is the Dog
Melbourne has never looked sleeker than in this low-key mumblecore piece.

JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass
Oliver Stone knows who really killed the president. Now, his new documentary sets out to convince you.

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

Karen Dalton: In My Own Time
An engrossing profile of a little-known 60s blues and folk icon, executive-produced by Wim Wenders.

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

La Civil
This illustriously produced vigilante drama centres on a mother who will do anything to get her kidnapped daughter back.

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

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

Little Tornadoes
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.

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

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

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

The Macaluso Sisters
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.

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

Mama
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.

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

MIFF Talks - Family Affair: Filmmakers Share Their Lives
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.

MIFF Talks - Folk Heroes: Documenting Artists and Icons
Four documentarians discuss their MIFF 69 films that spotlight individuals who have carved out influential careers amid personal and professional struggles.

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

MIFF Talks - Queer Activism: From Life to Screen
A panel of filmmakers, academics and activists explore one of the prevalent documentary themes in this year’s festival: queer activism.

Moments Like This Never Last
Dash Snow epitomised “live fast, die young”, ascending from New York’s fringe to the major international art scene during his brief existence.

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

Moon, 66 Questions
In Jacqueline Lentzou’s exceptional feature debut, an already strained father–daughter relationship is put under pressure.

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
An unsettling, melancholic portrait of what fame did to the talented young star of Death in Venice.

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

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

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

Nestor
Routine is the only thing keeping Nestor afloat.

Never Gonna Snow Again
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.

New Order
Winner of the Silver Lion at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, this shocking, dystopian thriller is an incendiary indictment of class, racism and power that speaks to our times.

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

The Night
The first Iran–US co-production to open in Iranian cinemas since the revolution pits a couple against a malevolent hotel, trapping them in with their secrets.

Night of the Kings
A young prison inmate is transformed into a modern-day Scheherazade in this electrifying tribute to the power of storytelling.

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

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

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

Nitram
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.

No Home Movie
“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

No Ordinary Man
Maliciously outed after his death, musician Billy Tipton is now a transmasculine icon.

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

Notturno
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 Nowhere Inn
Carrie Brownstein and St. Vincent play versions of themselves in this music mockumentary that explores the absurdities of fame and friendship.

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

O Black Hole!
Loneliness is operatic in the latest film by Renee Zhan.

Off Country
Indigenous teenagers navigate exams, social dramas and maintaining meaningful connections to home while at boarding school.

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

The Painted Bird
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.

Palazzo di Cozzo
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.

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

Paper City
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.

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

Pickpocket
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.

Playlist
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.

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

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché
A daughter explores her mother’s complex punk legacy in this no-holds-barred documentary.

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

Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
Love and reality go under the scalpel in this story of obsession on the streets of Budapest.

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

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

Psychomania
Undead bikies, wealthy witches, Satanic butlers and magic frogs. What more could you want from a cult post-Hammer horror?

Queen of Glory
This gutsy and charming film about a young Ghanaian-American woman at a crossroads marks the arrival of a filmmaker with a fresh, unique vision.

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

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

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

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

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

Riders of Justice
Mads Mikkelsen headlines this ingenious, pitch-black Scandi revenge comedy.

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

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

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

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

Sanrizuka – Peasants of the Second Fortress
Ogawa Productions’ first internationally successful film captures farmers in Sanrizuka, Japan, resisting a government takeover of their land.

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

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

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

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

Smooth Talk
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.

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

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

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

Step Into the River
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.

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

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

Streamline
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.

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

Sun Children
A gang of streets kids is hired to pull off a dangerous heist in this Oscar-shortlisted coming-of-age drama from Iranian master director Majid Majidi.

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

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

There Is No Evil
Questions of morality and duty play out against the backdrop of the Iranian justice system in the 2020 Berlinale’s Golden Bear winner.

This Rain Will Never Stop
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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Village Detective: A Song Cycle
Bill Morrison revisits lesser-known chapters of Soviet film history in this hypnotic fever dream that melds art and archive.

The Wasteland
Abbas Kiarostami protégé Ahmad Bahrami’s 2020 Venice Orizzonti Award winner is a dreamlike expedition to a remote Iranian factory.

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

What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
This Berlinale FIPRESCI Prize winner is a romantic, Kafkaesque fable full of poignant whimsy and playful imagery.

Wife of a Spy
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.

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

The Witches of the Orient

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

Wolf Children
Just your ordinary story of a girl who falls in love with a wolfman and raises their children – this anime classic celebrates difference and unconventional families.

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
From race to religion, flesh to nature, this comprehensive documentary explores how cinema exhumes the old traumas that modernity tries to bury.

Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives
The first feature documentary made by queer filmmakers about queer life – by the Mariposa Film Group – captures an essential moment in the gay liberation movement.

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

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

You and Me, Before and After
Yael Stone and Emily Barclay star as frenemy sisters in this sibling dramedy by Madeleine Gottlieb.

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