And the winner is… MIFF 2026 Awards
MIFF has announced the winners of the 2026 MIFF Awards, presenting a prize pool of more than $300,000 across a suite of five categories.…
Melbourne International Film Festival
40 posts
Wilderness is a profoundly misguided attempt to bring environmental issues to the forefront in a film that consistently brushes them aside
Martin McKenna’s long-gestating film Wilderness very occasionally allows glimpses of a better film he chose not to make. It gives me absolutely no pleasure to write a review of a small budget Australian film and deem it incompetent on almost every level.…
Inventive and absurd, Yesterday Island is a terrific low-budget Australian black comedy
Perhaps the best thing about Sam Voutas’ inventive black comedy is that it’s near impossible to avoid thinking of people you’d willingly send to the island, proving that there’s a bit of pettiness to all of us, and certainly some malleable ethics.…
Sophy Romvari on the unreliability of memory in Blue Heron and merging fiction and documentary
I feel very strongly that we are when you are given the opportunity to make a film, you get to build your own world around it, and you get to build the environment that you shoot in, and I think I feel that I think that because I did that, it impacted the outcome of the film.…
Paloma Schneideman on staying true to her instincts
Instinctually, you know what you know. No one really knows the film better than you. I mean, there are logistical things that people know better, and there are technical things that people know better. But there's no one who knows the chain of importance around the storytelling better than yourself.…
Vee Shi’s family docudrama Time and Tide shows China’s Filial Piety Law as emotionally and financially complex
It is steadfast in its portrait of the family at their best and at their most exhausted and frayed. With the camera picking up not only the conversations and arguments, but also the physical dynamic of the family, Shi invites us into a world where the most casual acts are imbued with meaning.…
Gregg Araki says let’s get physical in I Want Your Sex
I Want Your Sex is a comic masterpiece with Araki sparing no one. The contemporary art world is far from groundbreaking, Erika is “over the hill” by her late 30s, Apple is fragile to the point where she “just can’t” with most things. And Elliot, poor Elliot, is a puppy who still isn’t housetrained.…
The Leader is a powerful and disturbing dive into the mechanisms of cults
The Leader is observant and chilling; boasting one of Vera Farmiga’s most robust performances.…
Covi and Frimmel’s docufiction keeps the Blues alive in Al Cook’s mighty heart
The Loneliest Man in Town is a muted masterwork. Touching, gentle, sometimes very funny, and within its specificity speaks of something universal.…
Alexandre O. Philippe’s intimate portrait of Kim Novak allows her to appreciate herself
Kim Novak emerges from her memories as a fully realised human who is revitalised by the chance to speak openly about her biggest fear to find it overcome. Kim Novak discovers Kim Novak and she likes her.…
Mark Cousins on stories, documentaries, film and The Story of Documentary Film
Documentary is trying to capture what should have been said and perhaps hasn't been said. There'll always be documentary because we'll always be trying to understand ourselves.…
From Wicker to Bright Horizons, this is MIFF 74
Tonight, the 74th Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) unveiled its full 2026 program – more than 300 screen works spanning features, shorts and XR experiences, special events – including the…