10:00am

Follow the Companion Sky Spirit through a virtual walk on Country: emerging from subterranean soils to the ground level, ascending to meet the clouds.

Dir. April Phillips / 2024 / 10 mins / Australia / Yuin / Animation / Victorian Premiere
Program Strand/s: MIFF XR
10:30am

This Teddy Award winner is a study of family bonds fraying in the aftermath of tragedy and of the found families that put us back together again.

Dir. Ray Yeung / 2024 / 93 mins / Hong Kong / Cantonese / Drama / Victorian Premiere
Program Strand/s: Asia Pacific
10:45am

A Wiseman-esque study of a Japanese village’s Shinto shrine whose feline residents bring the local humans joy, solace and sometimes consternation.

Dir. Kazuhiro Soda / 2024 / 119 mins / USA, Japan / Japanese / Documentary / Victorian Premiere
Program Strand/s: The Natural World
11:15am

A stunning doc that follows the Yanomami people of the Amazon as they perform a sacred rite and defend their homeland from the incursion of mining.

Program Strand/s: The Natural World
12:00pm

A special preview of four of Australia’s newest interactive documentary works-in-the-making, proudly co-presented by Frame Documentary, MIFF and ACMI X.

Program Strand/s: Special Events
1:00pm

A steely criminal lawyer juggles a murder case and tending to her dying mother in this Turkish drama that unspools over a tense 24 hours.

Program Strand/s: Europe & UK
1:30pm

A menagerie adrift on a boat must work together to survive a catastrophic flood in this animated wonder arriving from Cannes Un Certain Regard.

Program Strand/s: Bright Horizons
1:45pm

Rock your world with this mesmerising documentary about the increasingly impermanent building blocks of civilisation.

Program Strand/s: The Natural World
3:30pm

A middle-aged actress begins to unravel in this dynamite debut, featuring an explosive, emotionally wrenching lead performance from Yara de Novaes.

Dir. Pedro Freire / 2024 / 101 mins / Brazil / Portuguese / Drama / Australian Premiere
Program Strand/s: Latin America
4:00pm

Tensions explode in a family’s country home in the Zürcher brothers’ follow-up to their acclaimed The Girl and the Spider.

Dir. Ramon Zürcher / 2024 / 117 mins / Switzerland / German / Drama / Victorian Premiere
Program Strand/s: Europe & UK
4:00pm

An awarded and acclaimed cornucopia from directors known and new.

Program Strand/s: MIFF Shorts
4:00pm

In this Sundance award-winner, race and class complicate the transaction between a wealthy couple and the scrap dealers they invite to their mansion.

4:00pm

A visually striking meditation on motherhood as a young woman goes to extraordinary lengths to help her pregnant mother.

4:00pm

A poignant glimpse of the bond between a father and his teenage daughter at the height of the Iran–Iraq war.

Dir. Julia Elihu / 2023 / 13 mins / USA, Iran / Farsi / Drama / Australian Premiere
4:00pm

A superstitious widow confronts her mortality after human remains are discovered at her neighbour’s house.

4:00pm

A moving, beautifully shot portrait of two trans women on a road trip across Greece.

4:00pm

A powerful, queer-focused story about a Palestinian family who are forced to make an impossible choice.

Dir. Dima Hamdan / 2023 / 14 mins / Palestine / Arabic / Drama / Australian Premiere
4:15pm

The age of Aquarius floods into Nimbin in this radical, love-fuelled documentary exploring the lasting impact of a 1970s counterculture crucible.

Program Strand/s: Australian Films Documentaries
6:00pm

Modern and traditional values clash in acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s daring family drama, which won two prizes at Cannes.

Dir. Mohammad Rasoulof / 2024 / 168 mins / Iran / Farsi / Drama, Thriller / Victorian Premiere
Program Strand/s: Headliners
6:15pm

Her uniquely emotional songwriting fuelled the best revenge on her cheating husband: a brilliant second solo career.

Program Strand/s: Music on Film
6:15pm

A simple camping trip evolves into a life-changing experience in this sensitively told coming-of-age debut.

Dir. India Donaldson / 2024 / 90 mins / USA / English / Drama / Australian Premiere
Program Strand/s: Bright Horizons
6:15pm

And Then We Danced (MIFF 2019) director Levan Akin’s Teddy Jury Award–winning follow-up is a luminous salute to the various communities of Istanbul.

Program Strand/s: Europe & UK
6:15pm

Immerse yourself in a wildly imaginative, proudly neurodivergent world informed by autistic perspectives and perception.

Program Strand/s: Documentaries
6:30pm

Lose yourself in this immersive trip into the fascinating world of fungi, as narrated by Björk.

6:30pm

Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg star in undoubtedly the greatest wordless, scatological, horny and tragicomic Bigfoot movie in the history of cinema.

Program Strand/s: North America
6:30pm

For eight survivors of childhood sexual abuse, a program that combines boxing and writing turns into a journey of recovery and friendship.

Dir. Shannon Owen / 2024 / 98 mins / Australia / Documentary / World Premiere
Program Strand/s: Australian Films Documentaries
6:45pm

Slip into the serene surrounds of Japanese ‘listening cafés’, where music lovers, audiophiles and locals come together to hear records.

Program Strand/s: Music on Film
6:45pm

This zany transformation of Canada’s beigest city into the site of a classic Iranian film won Cannes Directors’ Fortnight’s first ever Audience Award.

Program Strand/s: Bright Horizons
8:45pm

The past comes knocking in this four-time Venice-winning feature debut that blends grief, grime, love and childhood trauma.

Dir. Luna Carmoon / 2023 / 126 mins / UK / English / Drama / Australian Premiere
Program Strand/s: Bright Horizons
9:00pm

Sebastian Stan (The Winter Soldier) plays a wannabe actor who learns that confidence isn’t skin-deep in this deliciously twisted morality tale.

Dir. Aaron Schimberg / 2024 / 112 mins / USA / English / Drama / Victorian Premiere
Program Strand/s: North America Headliners
9:00pm

Comedian Nina Conti directs this darkly funny joy ride featuring a monkey, a radio host brought back from the brink and a dead man’s watch.

Dir. Nina Conti / 2024 / 96 mins / UK / English / Drama, Comedy / International Premiere
Program Strand/s: Europe & UK
9:00pm

Underground auteur Joel Potrykus returns with a mind-bending and hilariously shocking trip into the existential terror of middle age.

Dir. Joel Potrykus / 2024 / 85 mins / USA / English / Drama, Comedy / Australian Premiere
Program Strand/s: North America
9:00pm

A charming autobiographical valentine to coming of age in New Zealand during the height of punk, which was Rotterdam’s 2024 opening-night film.

Program Strand/s: Asia Pacific
9:15pm

A disturbing secret threatens a couple’s relationship in this rural-set sci-fi thriller starring Succession’s Ashley Zukerman.

Program Strand/s: Australian Films
9:15pm

Jon Bell expands his MIFF 2020 Best Australian Short Film winner into a feature-length horror steeped in the trauma of the Stolen Generations.

Dir. Jon Bell / 2023 / 86 mins / Australia / English / Drama, Horror / Victorian Premiere
Program Strand/s: Australian Films Night Shift
9:30pm

Unfiltered and unapologetic. Not for the faint of heart.

Program Strand/s: MIFF Shorts
9:30pm

Acclaimed documentarian Mahdi Fleifel makes his fiction debut with a Midnight Cowboy–inspired Palestinian refugee story.

Program Strand/s: Africa & Middle East
9:30pm

Revenge is a dish best served during a coffee break for an overworked, under-slept new father.

9:30pm

At the Hotel Vaip, where machines simulate human contact, guests pay a high price.

9:30pm

A schoolgirl discovers the catfish she bought for dinner is a talking sentient bioweapon.

9:30pm

Ducks, dicks and lactating tits collide in this stop-motion nightmare about the anxieties of infertility.

9:30pm

In this sinister short set at an Irish farm, an accident corners a teenager into making an irreversible choice.

9:30pm

A violin student’s competitiveness manifests as grotesque, nightmarish creatures.

9:30pm

When a young man is caught masturbating, he descends into a downward spiral of humiliation.

9:45pm

Guy Pearce stars in this prison-set portrait of incarceration and salvation – the feature debut from Short Film Palme d’Or winner Charles Williams.

2024 / 104 mins / Australia / Drama, Crime / World Premiere
Program Strand/s: Australian Films Bright Horizons
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