MIFF 2026 HIGHLIGHTS: PART 1
Melbourne International Film Festival 6-23 August 2026
MIFF 2026 promises to be a special year. Here are some highlights from the schedule.
Wicker
Directed by: Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson
Starring: Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Elizabeth Debicki, Marli Siu, Nabhaan Rizwan, Richard E. Grant, Peter Dinklage, Ben Ashenden
In a small medieval farming town with rigid social hierarchy and patriarchal culture, a recluse fisherwoman is the subject of ostracism due to her persistent fish smell and outright rejection of institutionalized marriage. When the japes at her spinster status intensify, she sarcastically commissions herself a husband made out of wicker. The master weaver indeed brings the Wicker Husband to life, where his honest, helpful nature and total dedication to his wife creates a romance so pure it causes absolute chaos amongst the villagers of the closed minded town.
Paper Tiger
Directed by: James Gray
Starring: Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Miles Teller
In James Gray’s deeply felt and intense drama two brothers, in 1980s Queens, become entangled in a scheme that turns out to be too good to be true. They find themselves caught up with the Russian mafia, which ends up terrorising their suburban family and puts their own sibling bond to the test.
Big Girls Don’t Cry
Directed by: Paloma Schneideman
Starring: Ani Palmer, Noah Taylor, Rain Spencer, Beatrix Wolfe
This is the debut feature from Schneiderman. Rural New Zealand, 2006. Over one transformative summer, 14 year-old Sid Bookman discovers desire, identity and the internet, as she imitates the people she longs to be loved by.
Dead Man’s Wire
Directed by: Gus Van Sant
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Cary Elwes, Myha’la, Colman Domingo, Al Pacino
On February 8, 1977, Tony Kiritsis entered the office of Richard Hall, president of the Meridian Mortgage Company, and took him hostage with a sawed-off shotgun wired with a “dead man’s wire” from the trigger to Tony’s own neck.
I Want Your Sex
Directed by: Gregg Araki
Starring: Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, Roxane Mesquida, Charli XCX, Daveed Diggs
When fresh-faced Elliot (Hoffman) lands an exciting job for renowned artist, icon and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), his fantasies come true as Erika taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot soon finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey more profound than he ever could have imagined, into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal and murder.
Blue Heron
Directed by: Sophy Romvari
Starring: Eylul Guven, Edik Beddoes, Amy Zimmer, Ádám Tompa, Iringó Réti
Sasha, the eight-year-old daughter of a Hungarian immigrant family who relocate to Vancouver Island in the late 1990s while their oldest son Jeremy (Edik Beddoes) displays increasingly dangerous behavioural issues in their new environment.
Goodbye Cruel World (Adieu monde cruel)
Directed by: Félix de Givry
Starring: Milo Machado-Graner, Jane Beever, Françoise Lebrun, Emmanuelle Destremau, Erwan Kepoa Falé
14-year-old Otto vanishes after writing goodbye letters to his classmates. Everyone thinks he’s dead, but his classmate Léna spots him walking the streets one night.
French Girls
Directed by: Hyun Lee
Starring: Mia Kidis, Daia, Megan Douglas, Nash Edgerton, Anya Beyersdorf
An inspired act of micro-budget filmmaking, this playful gig economy parable set in the Sydney fashion scene introduces an impressive array of new Australian talent.
Mia is floating through life: dating a small-time scammer; killing time in front of screens; working a menial job in construction. When the unexpected opportunity arises for her to exchange hi-vis for high fashion, she reluctantly falls into the world of modelling, where there’s ample money, prestige, gossip … and just as much boredom. Lost between old friends who judge her new job and new friends she can’t quite trust, Mia keeps floating along. Via a series of questionable choices and increasing misadventures, however, she will ultimately become infamous.
Sweet Milk Lake
Directed by: Harvey Zielinski
Starring: Mia Morrissey, Harvey Zielinski, Hunter Page-Lochard, Kieran Darcy-Smith, Nic Cassim, Ngaire Pigram, David Howell, Belinda McClory
After being mistaken for his brother, a young trans man adapts to a precarious new life in his estranged father’s rural town.
City boy Jake is at a loose end. Unemployed, single and holed up in a granny flat behind his family home, he lives in the shadow of his cisgender twin brother, successful real estate agent Sam. On an impulse, he takes a trip to the remote country town of Sweet Milk, where his terminally ill, estranged father (Kieran Darcy-Smith) still lives, totally unaware that Jake has transitioned. When his dad mistakes him for Sam and Jake misses the moment to correct him, an unforeseen opportunity lands in his lap: to fit in as masculine in a place where nobody suspects he’s trans. Adopting Sam’s identity, he manages to connect with his father for the first time, while a budding romance with local Toby (Hunter Page-Lochard, Kid Snow, MIFF 2024) – himself an outsider in this macho setting – offers further reinvigoration. But the longer Jake spends in Sweet Milk, the more tangled the web he weaves. How long can he hold on to his secret, and what will happen if the truth gets out?
The Friend’s House Is Here
(Khaneh doost injast )
Directed by: Hossein Keshavarz and Maryam Ataei
Starring: Mahshad Bahram, Hana Mana, Farzad Karen, Zohreh Pirnia
Both a charismatic hangout movie and a courageous act of dissent, this Sundance winner spends quality time with two young women trying to make art in Iran.
Hanna (Hana Mana) is a contemporary dancer who posts videos of her work online, while playwright Pari (Mahshad Bahram) stages experimental theatre productions. In Iran, both of these acts are illegal. Thick-as-thieves besties and housemates who participate in Tehran’s underground art communities, they live their lives – as artists, feminists and unwed women – in defiance of an authoritarian government that is openly hostile to everything they do. Armed with their friendship, their ideologies and a serious streak of rebellion, Hanna and Pari try to make art and make it through another day.
Nearly four decades after Iranian cinema legend Abbas Kiarostami’s breakout 1987 film posed the eternal question Where Is the Friend’s House?, Hossein Keshavarz and Maryam Ataei deliver a playful answer. Inspired by classic Iranian art movies, Jean-Luc Godard’s political films of the 1960s and the US indie mumblecore movement, The Friend’s House Is Here is a movie about how to live your best, most creative life under a repressive regime. Shot in secret and smuggled out of Iran to make its Sundance premiere, the film went on to receive the festival’s U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast – a just reward for the non-professional actors (many themselves working artists) who appear in this film.
“A film about life-defining friendships, along with the healing properties of sisterhood … feels like a compassionate gift, given in gratitude to all artists who refuse to be silenced.” – Variety
Sadly there is not a trailer for this film yet. However, here is a Vulture interview with the filmmakers detailing their struggle to get the film made and out of Iran.
The 2026 Melbourne International Film Festival is on from 6-23 August.
For full details go to https://miff.com.au/