This year’s Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF, August 6-23) opens with the Olivia Colman-led quirkily comic fairy tale comedy Wicker and includes Madeline McKenna’s Melbourne-shot Mad Rush, Hyun Lee’s Sydney-set French Girls, and Our Effed Up World, the latest from horror whizz kid Alice Maio Mackay.
Two of the festival’s key programmers, Kate Jinx and Kate Fitzpatrick, share their curated collection of MIFF classics at SBS On Demand that you can stream while you wait for the festival to take over Melbourne’s cinemas this August.
Bedevil
One of Australia’s most successful artists, Tracey Moffat was also the first Aboriginal woman to direct a narrative feature. Bedevil, her spooky triptych of First Nations-led ghost stories, debuted at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.
“It’s such an incredibly vivacious film,” Fitzpatrick says. “Just so atmospheric, and even with the horror aspect, it’s so full of life, light and colour.”
Jinx agrees. “To see Tracey’s eye translate onto the screen across a narrative setting is really quite extraordinary,” she says. “It’s a really gorgeous, galvanising film.”
Bedevil is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Anatomy of a Fall
One of the biggest names in cinema right now, The Zone of Interest star Sandra Hüller appears in two major MIFF films this year, Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland and Markus Schleinzer’s Rose.
Catch up on her acting masterclass as she depicts a novelist accused of murdering her husband in Oscar-winner Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-crowned courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Fall.
“Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder is one of my all-time favourite films, and this riffs on that wonderfully,” Fitzpatrick says. “It’s also an incredibly interesting insight into the French legal system.”
Jinx also rates the lovable Palm Dog Award-winning star, Messi, and Milo Machado-Graner, who plays the blind son caught up in the court case and stars in this year’s Goodbye Cruel World by Félix de Givry. “It’s brilliant to see him grown up a little.”
Anatomy of a Fall is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
La Chimera
Disclosure Day star Josh O’Connor appears as a grave-digger on the hunt for Etruscan treasure in this dreamy, 80s Tuscany-set misadventure from Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher that also features her sister, Alba, and the legendary Isabella Rossellini.
“This is one of my favourite films of the last decade,” Jinx says. “Alice Rohrwacher’s films are sublime. Josh’s character has this preternatural ability to focus on treasure under the earth, while he’s also looking for his lost love. It’s very much about how we view art, and what history should we be pulling up and dealing with?”
Fitzpatrick loves Hélène Louvart’s cinematography. “It has a grainy, hazy look that’s so beautiful. I love the texture of Rohrwacher’s films.”
La Chimera is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
First Cow
Meek’s Cutoff director Kelly Reichardt is one of the finest filmmakers working in North America, crafting quietly powerful films that linger. So it is with First Cow, which features a delicately blooming relationship between two hustlers in 1820s Oregon who steal milk from the state’s only cow to sell sweet oily cakes.
“I was astounded by it, and I love that Reichardt collaborated again with short story-writer Jonathan Raymond (Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy),” Jinx says. “John Magaro and Orion Lee’s performances are quite beautiful.”
Fitz agrees. “I really love that Reichardt refers to it as a caper film, looking at it through that lens, and how much she pays attention to animals.”
First Cow is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Bob Trevino Likes It
Euphoria star Barbie Ferreira plays Lily, a 20-something estranged from her father in Bob Trevino Likes It. Thinking she’s reached out to him on Facebook, she instead contacts John Leguizamo’s dad of the same name in this dramedy loosely based on director Tracie Laymon’s true story. Ferreira also pops up in this year’s MIFF title, Mile End Kicks.
“Barbie has this wide-eyed naivety to her performances, which really draws me in,” Fitzpatrick says. “You think you know where this one’s going, with social media, but it surprises you.”
Jinx agrees. “It’s such a lovely, heartwarming story.”
Bob Trevino Likes It is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Corsage
Set around Christmas, 1877, Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage stars Un Certain Regard award-winner Vicky Krieps as the real-life Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who is not handling turning 40 at all well, becoming unhealthily obsessed with her body image.
“It’s a really great, feminist film, written and directed by a woman, with so many women who’ve given great performances and worked on it behind the scenes,” Fitzpatrick says. “But it was pulled from theatres because of the actions of a heinous man who worked on it who was found guilty of hoarding child pornography.”
A nightmare that forms the basis of Kreutzer’s latest film, Gentle Monster, starring Léa Seydoux, which screens at this year’s MIFF.
Corsage is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
My Favourite Cake
Iranian actor and filmmaker Maryam Moghadam and her husband Behtash Sanaeeha spin a rousing romance between an older widowed couple, Mahin and Faramarz, played by Lily Farhadpour and Esmail Mehrabi, in Tehran.
“I was blown away by how much heart this one has,” Jinx says. “Mahin’s old enough to remember pre-revolution. She is so funny, feisty and full of life. When she finds love, you are right there with her.”
Fitzpatrick adored the December-December romance. “That was the real draw card for me, because you rarely see it depicted in film.”
My Favourite Cake is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Blue Jean
Borrowing its name from the Bowie song, English writer/director Georgia Oakley’s BAFTA-winner stars Rosy McEwen as a closeted PE teacher in the 80s, during Margaret Thatcher’s insidious Section 28 policy, which banned the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools.
“Rosy’s great at conveying this inner turmoil of having to live through this horrible time,” Jinx says. “The young Scottish actor who plays her student, Lucy Halliday, is also fantastic, and it has a great soundtrack.”
Blue Jean is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Ama Gloria
French filmmaker Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq’s film follows the bittersweet summer when six-year-old Cléo (Louise Mauroy-Panzani) discovers her beloved nanny, Gloria (Ilça Moreno), is returning to Cape Verde to rejoin her own children.
“It’s such an emotional film with an incredible performance by this tiny, tiny young woman,” Fitzpatrick says. “She really carries the emotional heft of the film and has such incredible chemistry with Ilça. It also looks beautiful, with two very distinct landscapes that fit into the whole story of these two identities.”
Ama Gloria is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Radiance
Arrernte and Kalkadoon filmmaker Rachel Perkins collaborated with playwright Louis Nowra to adapt his work about three estranged Aboriginal sisters – Deborah Mailman, Trisha Morton-Thomas, Rachael Maza – who reunite to plan their mother’s funeral.
“This is the film that introduced us to Deborah Mailman, and what a stunning central performance,” Jinx says. “What an incredible cast. Warwick Thornton was the cinematographer, with Ned Lander producing it, so it’s got this all-star Australian crew behind it, too.”
Fitzpatrick praises Perkins’ direction. “And she’s been an incredible mentor to others, creating so many opportunities for First Nations artists to get their work made and seen.”
Radiance is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Vacant Possession
Australian filmmaker Margot Nash’s debut feature stars Pamela Rabe as Tessa, a young woman who returns to her late mother’s weather-beaten home in Botany Bay as old wounds are reopened.
“Margot is a formidable, political woman who did a lot of work in documentary film before she made this,” Fitzpatrick says.
“They lived next door to an Aboriginal family, and Tessa had a relationship with their son when she was younger. The fact that it’s set in Botany Bay has very obvious undertones, relating to the idea of Terra Nullius. It’s fantastic, beautifully shot and with great performances from Pamela Rabe and John Stanton as her estranged dad.”
Vacant Possession is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
