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.

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

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’.

Spurred by political unrest in Thatcher’s Britain, the Black Audio Film Collective’s experimental cinema challenges form and culture to dismantle stereotype.

Commissioned by Chunky Move, this playfully experimental work traverses ritual, body modification and algorithms.

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.

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

This award-winning, stylistically bold documentary tells the story of an Afghan refugee’s coming home – and coming out – via animation and archival footage.

Olivia Martin McGuire parallels a grandfather’s journey to safety during the Cultural Revolution with his granddaughter’s fight for freedom in Hong Kong today.

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.

Archival footage and media portrayal of violent civil disturbances in Birmingham are used to explore a broader picture of the Black experience in postwar Britain.

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.

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

Essie Davis is incandescent as a squeegee-wielding mama bear who won’t stop fighting for those she loves – even if it ruins her own life.

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

Produced by Wang Yang and Palme d’Or winner Qiu Yang, Lili Alone is a beautifully mournful story about one woman’s sacrifice.

This story of a Syrian refugee awaiting resettlement on a remote Scottish island is at once heart-wrenching and humorous.

As humans shoot for the stars, what do we lose along the way?

In the 2021 Sundance Short Film Grand Jury Prize winner, a young girl stumbles upon secrets at her local church in Lagos.

Poised at the intersection of activism and art, wunderkind Fox Maxy’s TikTok-esque tapestry documents the injustice and legacy of colonisation.

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

On a slag heap that once belonged to a coalmine, revellers seek erotic gratification.

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

Before Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Rosa Parks, there was Pauli Murray. Remember their name.

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

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

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.

Göteborg’s Best Feature Film winner fearlessly dissects the contemporary porn industry through the perspective of a young woman determined to be a star.

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.

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

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.

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.

A screen experience like no other, this is the first ever live documentary filmed by refugees from around the world – edited and scored live on stage.

Yugantar focuses on female labour rights in Tobacco Ember (Tambaku Chaakila Oob Ali, 1982), which features factory workers in Nipani.

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

On the cusp of turning 10, a Jamaican girl is about to learn how not to drown.

Winner of Best Short Film at the Swiss Film Awards, this documentary observes the impact of time – and historical trauma – on one commemorative street.

Digitally restored in 2019, three pioneering works by the Yugantar Film Collective offer a rare insight into the active women’s movements across 1980s India.