Oz titles bookend Melbourne mega selection

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Festival News

The Melbourne International Film Festival (2-19 Aug) completed the line-up of its 61st edition this week with the announcement of its full selection and confirmation that P.J. HOGAN's family comedy drama Mental (pictured) has been set as the closing night screening.

That means that, taken together with the previously announced selection of The Sapphires as opener, the festival is bookended by local Australian features.

MIFF's Australian Showcase also provides the festival's Centrepiece Gala and the screening of Save Your Legs! by Melbourne director Boyd HICKLIN. The debut feature about cricket and Bollywood stars Stephen Curry, Damon Gameau and Brendan Cowell and was financially supported by the MIFF-Premiere Fund.

Others in the showcase include Jack Irish: Bad Debts, which was directed by Jeffrey WALKER and stars Guy PEARCE as a former criminal lawyer, part-time private investigator and debt collector; The First Fagin, a MIFF Premiere Fund-supported documentary about one of Australia's most infamous convicts; Luke WALKER's Lasseter's Bones, which follows the folk hero behind the legend of Lasseter's Reef; Amiel COURTIN-WILSON's love story Hail (2011); the documentary Coniston about the last-known massacre of indigenous Australians; and World War II outback documentary Croker Island Exodus.

Melbourne's Accent on Asia section includes South Korea's Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time 범죄와의 전쟁 : 나쁜놈들 전성시대; The Blindfold (2011), a story of three young Indonesians lured into Islamic fundamentalism; Edwin's Postcards from the Zoo Kebun binatang (2011); and a trio of films by the prolific MIIKE Takashi 三池崇史.

The festival, which has previously clashed with Chinese authorities over its film selection, notes that "control of official Chinese cinema remains tight." But it offers its alternative window into China through its Street Level Visions: Chinese Independent Docos section. Titles include ZHAO Liang 趙亮's Crime and Punishment (2007); WANG Jiuliang 王久良's Beijing Besieged by Waste 垃圾圍城 (2011); and ZHOU Hao 周浩's The Transition Period 書記 (2009), a peek at backroom political manipulations and publicly-funded drunken banquets in an underdeveloped county in central China.

The enormous 300 selection also has sections on film from the European Union, Latin America and new American comedy. Its festival of festivals selection was announced last month.

 
AUSTRALIAN SHOWCASE
Being Venice; dir. Miro Bilbrough
Coniston; dirs. David Batty and Francis Jupurrurla Kelly
Croker Island Exodus; dir. Steven McGregor
Errors Of The Human Body; dir. Eron Sheean
Hail; dir. Amiel Courtin-Wilson
Jack Irish: Bad Debts; dir. Jeffrey Walker
Lasseter's Bones; dir. Luke Walker
Last Dance; dir. David Pulbrook
Make Humus Not War; dir. Trevor Graham
Save Your Legs; dir. Boyd Hicklin
The First Fagin; dirs. Alan Rosenthal and Helen Gaynor
The Sapphires; dir. Wayne Blair

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Accent on Asia
11/25 The Day Mishima Chose His Own Fate
A Simple Life; dir. Ann Hui [Hong Kong]
Ace Attorney; dir. Miike Takashi [Japan]
For Love's Sake; dir. Miike Takashi [Japan]
Gangs of Wasseypur, part I; dir. Anurag Kashyap [India]
Gangs of Wasseypur, part II; dir. Anurag Kashyap [India]
Hara Kiri: Death of A Samurai; dir. Miike Takashi [Japan, UK]
Headshot; dir. Pen-ek Ratanaruang [Thailand, France]
Himizu; dir. Sono Sion [Japan]
I Wish; dir. Kore-eda Horokazu [Japan]
In Another Country; dir. Hong Sang-soo [South Korea]
Like Someone In Love; dir. Abbas Kiarostami [France, Japan]
Miss Lovely; dir. Ashim Ahluwahlia [India]
Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time; dir. Yoon Jong-bin [South Korea]
Postcards From The Zoo; dir. Edwin [Indonesia, Hong Kong]
Student; dir. Darezhan Omirbayev [Kazakhstan]
The Blindfold; dir. Garin Nugruho [Indonesia]
The Taste Of Money; dir. Im Sang-soo [South Korea]
Vulgaria; dir. Pang Ho-cheung [Hong Kong]
Warriors Of The Rainbow — Seediq Bale: Part 1; dir. Wei Te-sheng [Taiwan]
Warriors Of The Rainbow — Seediq Bale: Part 2; dir. Wei Te-sheng [Taiwan].

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