
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.

Animation Shorts

Australian Shorts

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

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’.

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

Blind Ambition

Bodies in Motion

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

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.

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

Documentary Shorts

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

Freedom Swimmer
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.

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.

Handsworth Songs
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.

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.

International Shorts 1

International Shorts 2

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

The Justice of Bunny King
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.

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

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

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

Listen to the Beat of Our Images
As humans shoot for the stars, what do we lose along the way?

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

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

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

The Men Who Wait
On a slag heap that once belonged to a coalmine, revellers seek erotic gratification.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Those Left Waiting
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.

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

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

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

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

Yugantar Film Collective
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.