This year's Melbourne International Film Festival (or, rather, MIFF) kicks off on Thursday night, which means that from the July 21 - August 7 there are going to be A LOT of films on offer for you, dear cinephile. This year's festival is packed full with great things, so we've trawled through the guide and picked out the ten films we're most excited about, just for you.
Consider it a ten-course degustation of extraordinary.
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TOMBOY
France, 2011 (International Panorama)
Tomboy was the winner of Best Queer Film at this year's Berlin International Film Festival.
It's a film about a 10 year old girl who decides to cut her hair short and start dressing as a boy, and in doing so (s)he catches the eye of a neighborhood girl. The film comments on gender identity, growing up, and what it's like to be in the middle of adolescents, with both humour and sensitivity.
[Ariel]
THE FUTURE
USA/Germany, 2011 (International Panorama)
Miranda July's new film is quirky, challenging, and affecting. It touches tenderly on notions of abandonment, loneliness, dissatisfaction, sexual desire and involves a talking cat, Paw Paw.
In our recent review, we described it as a film that will, "weave its way into your heart permanently
". [Ariel]
BEGINNERS
USA, 2010 (International Panorama)
I saw this one a couple of weeks ago when I was in LA (you don't get to say that much do you?) and it was brilliant. Emotional, inspiring, heartbreaking and poignant,
Beginners, is beautifully and carefully acted by everyone in it (Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic), which makes it tremendously moving. The story itself revolves around Hal (Plummer), who, after the loss of his wife, in the midst of stage four cancer, and at 75 years of age decides to come out, get a boyfriend and really start to embrace gay culture. His son, Oliver (McGregor), is confused about what this makes of his parent's forty year marriage, sad about life and at odds with himself emotionally. It's a really great film, written and directed by Mike Mills (whose drawings also make their way into the film).
[Ariel]
MELANCHOLIA
Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany, 2011 (International Panorama)
Lars Von Trier has a sense for mise-en-scène like few others today, and
Melancholia, with its laugh-a-minute title and hilarious ‘unwanted wedding at the dawn of the apocalypse’ premise promises to be an affecting, elegantly wrought study of the slow decay of expectation, emotion and complex relationships, all shot in a style so intoxicating it feels near drinkable. Equally impressive is the cast who as
Dunst’s Cannes gong will testify, are at their best in the film. Or you could just watch it to try and pick out clues about what lead to
its director’s awkward, Nazi-referencing rant... [Alyx]
PERSECUTION BLUES: THE BATTLE FOR THE TOTE
Australia, 2011 (Backbeat)
Persecution Blues is the storied document of the fight to save Melbourne's iconic Tote Hotel. Leading up to and including the the final days of the pub's controversial (albeit brief)
closure in early 2010, the doco features a great array of talking heads from the Melbourne music scene, images of the 20,000 strong rally opposing the state's draconian liquor licensing laws that took over the streets of Melbourne, and a close-up look at a dirty pub that has become a hugely important icon (and hang out) to the Australian music scene.
[Marcus]
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