The best films to catch at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, according to a MIFF programmer

Unmissable cinema.

This year I’ve taken to keeping a Notes app tab documenting every single movie I watch. Just over halfway through 2023, I can see I’ve gravitated to blockbuster Hollywood new releases and rewatches of comfort classics (Sleepless in Seattle is due for another viewing soon).

There’s something lacking in the list of 36 movies, and that’s a representation of new, independent cinema. At the behest of streaming platform giants, my appetite for indie films has been lacking. When I find I need inspiration, a good recommendation goes a long way.

For more content like this, browse through our Life section.

Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is currently in full swing, and until August 27, it’ll continue to take over our city with cultural events and cinema screenings. If you’re wanting to expand your motion picture palette, it’s the perfect time to do so.

Kate Jinx, a film curator, writer, podcaster, broadcaster and MIFF’s Features and Talks Programmer, spends the whole year finding and curating the best feature films to showcase at MIFF. Here, she walks us through the unmissable films to catch at MIFF (and beyond).

La Chimera

My favourite film at Cannes this year [is] Alice Rohrwacher’s (Happy as Lazzaro) sublime tale of Italian folklore, death and desire by way of a charismatic group of grave robbers. Led by an Englishman (Josh O’Connor) with a hangdog expression, a rumpled suit and a preternatural connection to the underworld, [it’s] truly a sublime cinema experience. Do. Not. Miss.

Riddle of Fire

I loved this wild American caper that screened at Cannes. Shot on hyper-saturated 16mm, it’s a lo-fi love letter to a classic children’s adventure film with supernatural flourishes. With a coolly irreverent feel and playful use of magic and video game tropes, it’s destined for cult status with the midnight set.

May December

A pitch-perfect camp melodrama as only Todd Haynes can do. Natalie Portman plays Elizabeth, an actress shadowing Gracie (Julianne Moore) to play her in an upcoming biopic about her infamous relationship (and, post-prison, consequent marriage plus children) with a 13-year-old boy. Gracie’s carefully constructed world begins to unspool as Elizabeth begins to probe. I wish I could see this for the first time again.

Banel and Adama

In the running for MIFF’s Bright Horizons Award for first or second feature, French-Senegalese director Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s film takes us to a small village where tension is building around two star-crossed lovers whose independence and passion are at odds with their gendered responsibilities. As a drought settles upon the landscape, rumours of a curse begin to grow.

The Adults

Michael Cera, Hannah Gross and Sophia Lillis star in this bittersweet ode to siblings – particularly the kind who are somewhat estranged and can only speak to each other by channelling oddball characters they came up with in childhood. So funny, so dark, and [it] has my favourite dance sequence in the entire MIFF program.

Conann

Can it get wilder than a transgressive, queer reimaging of Conan the Barbarian featuring all women (and one woman playing a dog person) that incorporates multiple eras, hell, glitter, gore (and lots of it) and some light cannibalism with a dash of art satire? I think not, but I’d love to be proven wrong. Direct from Cannes.

Australian Shorts

I only program features for MIFF, so the very carefully curated shorts packages are a delight each year – a place of pure discovery for me as a regular punter. So many of our great feature directors have shown their early shorts at MIFF, so this is a great opportunity to see who’s coming up next and who has returned to this more truncated form.

Tótem

A lovely, complex film that I adored at its premiere in Berlin. Also nominated for our Bright Horizons Award, it trails a day from morning to night lived by a young Mexican girl grappling with the imminent death of her father as her sprawling, charismatic family prepares a party to celebrate him. Psychics, cake chaos and the best way to use a vacuum – all of the absurdities of domestic life and community are on show here.

Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

Even with this year’s unseasonably good weather, it’s hard not to crave a sauna during the Melbourne winter. With this stunning documentary, retreat to a sacred space in the middle of the Estonian woods where a group of women discuss everything in their ritualistic, sweaty gatherings; their flesh becoming a landscape on screen.

The Eternal Daughter

I’m a card–carrying member of what we on the See Also podcast call “the Hogg Hive”. [We’re] perhaps the only self-identified Joanna Hogg fan club, so I’m particularly looking forward to seeing her new film, an unofficial epilogue to The Souvenir Parts I and II, on the big screen. Tilda Swinton stars in two roles, a mother and daughter who’ve taken lodging in a formerly grand estate, now shrouded by a perpetually eerie mist. A true delight.

To catch the full list of MIFF programming, head here.