An Atypical Rom-Com, an Art Heist and a Father-Son Rave Odyssey: Our Guide to MIFF’s 2025 MINI Headliners

From August 7 to 24, the Melbourne International Film Festival brings this year’s film festival circuit darlings to local screens. MIFF’s Headliners strand, presented by MINI, features all this year’s favourites. There are political thrillers, a retelling of a Broadway legend with Ethan Hawke in the lead role, and even an unconventional rom-com starring Dakota Johnson and Andor ’s Adria Arjona.

Need help navigating the star-studded program? Look no further.

Triple threats

Eva Victor debuts as director, writer and lead actor in A24’s Sorry, Baby, following a professor as she deals with the fallout of sexual assault. The critically acclaimed feature, produced by Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, The Underground Railroad), introduces the darkly funny perspective of a compelling new cinematic voice. Tumultuous rom-com Splitsville sees co-writers Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino (Covino also directed) star alongside Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona as couples navigating the tragi-comedy of divorce, friendship and open relationships.

The passage of time

Before there was Rodgers and Hammerstein – the American musical theatre songwriting duo behind Broadway-defining classics like The Sound of Music and The King and I – there was Rodgers and Hart. Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Lorenz Hart wrote a number of successful musicals together, before Rodgers brought Hammerstein on board to compensate for Hart’s increasingly disruptive drinking problem. Blue Moon follows Hart on the opening night of Oklahoma!, the new duo’s first (wildly popular) show, as he struggles with alcoholism, mental health and his own dwindling career. Ethan Hawke stars as Hart, with a cast that includes Margaret Qualley and Andrew Scott, whose portrayal of Richard Rodgers won him the award for Best Supporting Performance at the 2025 Berlinale.

Winner of the 2025 Berlinale Grand Jury Prize, dystopian drama The Blue Trail follows a 77-year-old woman who narrowly sidesteps a government-imposed retirement and instead chases her lifelong dreams all the way through the Amazon rainforest.

Looking back on French new wave cinema, Nouvelle Vague retells the story of the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 romantic crime drama Breathless. Guillaume Marbeck plays Godard, while Zoey Deutch appears as American-actress-turned-French-film-icon Jean Seberg.

Uncovering family secrets

In Romeria, an 18-year-old woman ventures to the Spanish coast to uncover deeply buried family history, including secrets about her biological parents’ struggles with AIDS and substance abuse. Oliver Laxe’s Sirât follows a father travelling from rave to rave across the deserts of southern Morocco in search of his daughter, who went missing at a party months ago. The film, which won big at Cannes (including the Palm Dog for best canine performance) is set to phenomenal techno soundtrack by Berlin-based French producer Kangding Ray.

Co-written by Anora director Sean Baker and shot entirely on an iPhone,
Taiwanese-American director Shih-Ching Tsou’s Left-Handed Girl sees a mother and her two daughters move to Taipei to open a stall at a bustling night market. Cracks start to form between the family’s three generations as deep-buried secrets emerge from within.

Political thrillers

Jafar Panahi has been banned from making films in his native Iran for two decades, but he has become one of the nation’s most prolific filmmakers by working in secret. His latest thriller, It Was Just an Accident, draws on the director’s experiences in solitary confinement in a Tehran prison. It took out the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Thriller Two Prosecutors is set in Russia during Stalin’s Great Purge of 1937. When a stray letter escapes a bonfire of protest letters from a gulag, detailing the lawlessness of the NKVD, a young state prosecutor seeks justice. The Secret Agent, meanwhile, snagged Best Director and Best Actor at Cannes with its depiction of ’70s Brazil under a military dictatorship.

Growing pains

The final work by the late realist director Laurent Cantet (The Class), subsequently entrusted to director Robin Campillo, Enzo has garnered comparisons to Call Me by Your Name. It’s a French coming of age tale that follows a boy from a well-off family who defies his parents’ expectations and goes to work on a construction site, where he becomes infatuated with his Ukrainian co-worker, Vlad.

The Dardenne brothers’ Young Mothers, which won Best Screenplay at Cannes, tells the story of five teenagers living in a Belgian shelter for young mothers as they strive to overcome their own difficult upbringings and provide a better life for their children.

And actress Kristen Stewart makes her directorial debut with The Chronology of Water, a romantic drama based on a memoir by American writer Lidia Yuknavitch. With a cast led by Imogen Poots and Tom Sturridge, the film oscillates between Yukanavitch’s childhood and her adult life, portraying her struggles with sexual abuse, substance abuse and failed relationships.

Families in crisis

The Mastermind is an unconventional heist film from Kelly Reichardt, swapping heart-thumping action sequences for a naturalistic portrayal of an unlikely robber’s life on the run with his family after stealing four paintings from his local art gallery. Josh O’Connor stars alongside Alana Haim (yes, of sister three-piece HAIM) in her second-ever silver screen appearance, following her Golden Globe-nominated debut in Licorice Pizza.

The Love That Remains is a family affair in more than one way – Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason (Godland) directs her own three children as the kids of a couple going through a separation; it’s a black comedy about the messy, push-and-pull reality of divorce.

Broadsheet is a proud media partner of the Melbourne International Film Festival. MIFF runs August 7 to 24 in select cinemas across the city. Find out more about this year’s MIFF Headliners, presented by MINI, at miff.com.au.