MIFF Shares Its First 26 Films and Events for 2025 – Including a Live Score

Cinematic talent from across the world will be showcased at Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) when the event returns from August 7 to 24 this year. The first two dozen titles and events were announced today, with the full program released on July 10 and tickets on sale from July 15.

There’s a strong music angle to 2025’s First Glance slate, with Los Angeles singer, songwriter and composer Julia Holter performing a live score of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc at the Melbourne Recital Centre. She’ll be accompanied by her band, singers from The Consort of Melbourne and conductor Hugh Brunt from the London Contemporary Orchestra. Tickets for that special event go on sale today.

Meanwhile, Melbourne-based New Zealand singer-songwriter Marlon Williams is the subject of the documentary Marlon Williams: Two Worlds - Ngā Ao E Rua, chronicling the making of his first album sung entirely in te reo Māori and duets with Lorde, Aldous Harding and Florence Welch.

Narrated by Hugh Jackman and multi-Aria-winning Yolngu rapper Baker Boy, the doco Journey Home, David Gulpilil highlights the cross-continental funeral preparations for the late Yolngu actor, who made such a lasting impression in films like Walkabout, Ten Canoes and The Last Wave. And Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse) returns with Cloud, a pointed thriller about cutthroat e-commerce.

Also, expect a stop-motion animation collection from French filmmaker Michel Gondry: Maya, Give Me a Title was inspired by story prompts from his four-year-old daughter when the two were living on separate continents. Elsewhere, Oscar winner Jessica Chastain reunites with Memory director Michel Franco for the culture-clash romance Dreams and indie film icon Jay Duplass makes his directorial debut with The Baltimorons, his first film made without his brother Mark.

The Sundance sensation Sorry, Baby pairs writer, director and star Eva Victor with Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges, and Ethan Hawke plays Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon. And in an adaptation of English author Jim Crace’s Booker-shortlisted novel, Harvest stars American actor Caleb Landry Jones (Nitram). The enticing Lurker has earned comparisons to Saltburn and Ingrid Goes West, and three-time Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan stars in The Ballad of Wallis Island.

On the home front, Melbourne director Nicholas Clifford’s feature debut One More Shot centres on a bottle of time-travelling tequila (yes, you read that correctly) and stars Australian actors Emily Browning, Ashley Zukerman and Aisha Dee. Filipino-Australian photographer James J Robinson helms First Light, a drama about an aging nun whose faith becomes shaken following a tragedy she witnesses in the Philippines.

VCA-trained director Sophie Somerville checks in with Melbourne’s contribution to mumblecore in Fwends, while Melbourne writer/director Lorin Clarke revisits the life and work of her satirist father in the documentary Not Only Fred Dagg But Also John Clarke. And Kristina Kraskov’s doco Spreadsheet Champions follows six people competing in the art of – wait for it – Microsoft Excel at a competition in Florida.

Now in its 73rd year, MIFF continues to make inroads across Victoria, with the MIFF Regional showcase spanning Bendigo, Ballarat, Castlemaine, Shepparton and other locations across two weekends in August. MIFF’s digital offering is back as well, with selected remote programming running for a week after the festival wraps. Head to MIFF’s website to see the full selection of First Glance films.

Melbourne International Film Festival runs from August 7–24. The full program will be released on July 10, with tickets on sale July 15.

miff.com.au

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