MIFF 2026 HIGHLIGHTS: PART 3
Melbourne International Film Festival 6-23 August 2026
Part three of our MIFF 2026 highlights.
Rose of Nevada
Directed by: Mark Jenkin
Starring: Callum Turner, George MacKay, Rosalind Eleazar, Edward Rowe, Mary Woodvine, Francis Magee
A Cornish seaside town mysteriously returns to life in analogue auteur Mark Jenkin’s lo-fi sci-fi meditation on memory starring George MacKay and Callum Turner.
Thirty years ago, fishing trawler the Rose of Nevada vanished off the coast of Cornwall, taking its crew with it. Their village has been in decline ever since. When the boat suddenly reappears out of the fog one day, many townsfolk regard it as a good omen. A new crew is hired and heads out to sea. After a few days, they return with a full catch … but their home isn’t quite as they remember it.
Shooting in 16mm on vintage Bolex cameras, Jenkin uses visual and aural textures as storytelling devices, immersing viewers in deliberately uncanny realities and time loops.
“[A] mind-fuck of a flick … It’s not every day that you see a film that reminds you of the work of Mike Leigh and David Lynch at the same time.” – RogerEbert.com
The Man I Love
Directed by: Ira Sachs
Starring: Rami Malek, Tom Sturridge, Rebecca Hall, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Luther Ford
Rami Malek captivates as an HIV-positive man who combats mortality with moxie in Ira Sachs’s Cannes-competing ode to queerness and libertinism.
New York, late 1980s. Having just left hospital, ebullient theatre artist Jimmy wants to take on life itself: partying with other figures from the West Village demimonde; preparing a spectacular oeuvre for the stage; being seen and loved in every way possible. He is loved, of course, despite his mercurial ego: by Dennis, his devoted partner, and by Brenda, his sister. But Jimmy’s HIV meds don’t guarantee survival; so, when a handsome young Brit moves into the building, Jimmy proceeds with abandon.
Minotaur (Минотавр)
Directed by: Andrey Zvyagintsev
Starring: Iris Lebedeva, Dmitriy Mazurov, Varvara Shmykova, Juris Zagars, Anatoliy Beliy
The winner of this year’s Grand Prix at Cannes, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s first film in almost a decade is an immaculate, sometimes darkly funny howl of rage at the corruption and moral entropy of Vladimir Putin’s war-enmeshed Russia.
In the immediate wake of his nation’s invasion of Ukraine, wealthy company CEO Gleb is directed to provide cannon fodder for Russia’s war machine. As he is ‘volunteering’ men to be drafted from within his employee pool, he learns that his wife Galina is having an affair with a handsome young artist. This intersection of Gleb’s professional and private crises becomes a trigger point for a shocking showdown.
After recovering from a near-fatal coma in 2021, dissident Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev (Loveless, MIFF 2017) has returned to reinterpret Claude Chabrol’s 1969 classic The Unfaithful Wife as a staunchly contemporary study of masculinity, both personal and political. His life in exile in France has only sharpened his fury at the current state of his fatherland, which is directed with exquisite precision not just at Putin and his cronies but also at the everyday collaborators, deliberate or accidental, who proliferate in the shadow of war. Shot in Latvia, Minotaur is a merciless thriller for our present times, with a crisp and cunning eye for detail and a savage streak of wry humour – a pièce de résistance in more ways than one.
Parallel Tales (Histoires Parallèles)
Directed by: Asghar Farhadi
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, Vincent Cassel, Pierre Niney, Adam Bessa, Catherine Deneuve, India Hair
In the latest Cannes-bowing psychological drama from Asghar Farhadi, Isabelle Huppert leads an all-star ensemble cast, playing a creatively blocked author whose voyeurism causes art and life to bleed into one another.
Sylvie, a reclusive and irascible novelist living in squalor in Paris, struggles to get the creative juices flowing. To address this, she decides to train her telescope on the apartment across the street, where she spies two men and a woman fumbling around with sound recording equipment. Fascinated, she conjures up a melodramatic backstory for the threesome and starts typing. But when a stranger enters her orbit, the lines between fantasy, fabrication and fixation begin to blur.
Pressure
Directed by: Anthony Maras
Starring: Andrew Scott, Brendan Fraser, Kerry Condon, Chris Messina, Damian Lewis
Hours before D-Day, General Eisenhower’s chief meteorologist warns of brutal weather – but doesn’t predict the stormy debate he now faces to save Allied lives.
In 72 hours, Allied forces will launch a mass invasion of Normandy to recapture Europe from the Nazis. Newly arrived at HQ, Scottish meteorologist Captain James Stagg (Andrew Scott, Blue Moon, MIFF 2025) begs for a delay. His pioneering real-time weather observations are predicting heavy rain and high winds that will swamp boats or drive them calamitously off course. Ebullient US weatherman Irving P. Krick (Chris Messina, Call Jane, MIFF 2022), on the other hand, says Stagg’s just doomcasting, and that historical barometric charts indicate it’ll be positively balmy – which is just what arrogant British commander Bernard “Monty” Montgomery (Damian Lewis, Homeland) wants to hear. But the fate of the war, and the world, rests on whom General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser, The Whale) chooses to trust.
Australian director Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai) dramatises this underappreciated historical turning point with moment-by-moment urgency, co-writing a grippingly cinematic adaptation of David Haig’s 2014 stage play.
Queen at Sea
Directed by: Lance Hammer
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Tom Courtenay, Anna Calder-Marshall, Steven Cree, Florence Hunt, Cody Molko
Amanda and her stepfather Martin struggle with a moral issue that divides them. Has Amanda’s mother, Leslie, who is experiencing advanced dementia, lost the ability to make critical decisions in her own best interest? If so, who is responsible – a spouse, a child, an institution – for making such a determination? As Amanda and Martin are forced to make increasingly difficult choices, the repercussions spiral out of their control.
Rose
Directed by: Markus Schleinzer
Starring: Sandra Hüller, Caro Braun, Marisa Growaldt, Godehard Giese, Robert Gwisdek
Amidst the turmoil of the Thirty Years´ War, somewhere in Germany, a mysterious soldier appears in a secluded Protestant village. Small and quiet, his face disfigured by a scar, this stranger declares himself the heir of a long-abandoned farmstead and produces a document to support his claim to the suspicious villagers. With time, he overcomes their doubts and shows himself to be a hard-working, God-fearing man, becoming part of the community in a quest for acceptance made up of impossible deceit. The true and twisted tale of a deceiver of land and folk, who, defying her birth as a woman, comported herself as a man and committed many a wicked deed.
Sheep in the Box (箱の中の羊)
Directed by: Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring: Haruka Ayase, Daigo Yamamoto, Rimu Kuwaki
In Hirokazu Kore-eda’s sci-fi-inflected parable, a bereaved couple adopt an AI-powered android to deal with a tragic loss.
In a near-future Japan of delivery drones and diet-monitoring fridges, REbirth has devised the ultimate remedy for grieving parents: a ‘replacement’ in the form of an anthropomorphic robot. Two years prior, an accident took architect Otone and carpenter Kensuke’s son Kakeru; when REbirth offers them a free trial, Otone doesn’t hesitate. While she becomes enamoured of the revived Kakeru, Kensuke is sceptical: “It’s a Tamagotchi. It’s a Roomba.” Gradually, they learn that making do is not the same as moving on.
“Kore-eda turns the stuff of dystopian nightmares into a beautiful fairytale study of loss … one of his purest, most dreamlike films to date.” – Deadline
Wishful Thinking
Directed by: Graham Parkes
Starring: Kate Berlant, Maya Hawke, Randall Park, Lewis Pullman, Kerri Kenney-Silver
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37599264
This SXSW Grand Jury Award–winning high-concept rom-com playfully questions the notion that love is the most powerful force in existence … for better or worse.
Charlie and Julia are deeply in love. They are also fundamentally incompatible – Charlie wants to get married and start a family; Julia doesn’t – and they spend as much time fighting as they do making up. Desperate to fix their relationship, they visit twin TikTok love gurus Tilly and Tilly, whose mysterious counsel reminds the couple how and why they fell for each other. It also unlocks something else, with earth-shattering repercussions … literally.
Cheekily interpreting the real-world implications of Rhonda Byrne’s pseudoscientific self-help hit The Secret, first-time feature director Graham Parkes creates a wonderfully witty, lived-in love story with a supernatural through-line that’s as hilarious as it is horrifying. Utilising ingenious split-screen techniques and capturing the stunning vistas of the Pacific Northwest, Parkes and cinematographer Christopher Ripley ensure the film looks incredible, while Lewis Pullman (The Testament of Ann Lee) and Maya Hawke (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, MIFF 2019; Stranger Things) are phenomenal as Charlie and Julia, exuding chemistry while anchoring every emotional heartbeat and delivering every punchline to perfection. With a supporting cast that includes Randall Park, Kate Berlant and Jon Hamm as himself in a brilliantly executed recurring bit, Wishful Thinking is a boldly original, funny and insightful study of the wonderful delusion at the heart of all love: that its exhilarating highs and heartbreaking lows can change the world.
“A wildly entertaining experience, underscored by jaw-dropping, gasp-inducing humour … It’s a blast of misery and euphoria bouncing off a filthy funhouse mirror, announcing the arrival of a director to watch.” – Variety
Yellow Letters (Gelbe Briefe)
Directed by: İlker Çatak
Starring: Özgü Namal, Tansu Biçer, Leyla Smyrna Cabas, İpek Bilgin
Derya and Aziz, a celebrated artist couple from Ankara, lead a fulfilling life with their 13-year-old daughter Ezgi – until an incident at the premiere of their new play changes everything. Overnight, they find themselves targeted by the state and lose their jobs and their home. They move to Istanbul to temporarily stay with Aziz’s mother. While Aziz ekes out a living with odd jobs and holds on to his convictions, Derya searches for a way to become financially independent. An increasing distance grows between them and their daughter until they are forced to choose between their values and their shared future as a family.
The 2026 Melbourne International Film Festival is on from 6-23 August.
For full details visit https://miff.com.au