Pair Your MIFF Screening With a Special Dinner at Supernormal, Antara, Barra and More

Dinner and a movie is a classic combo. With good food, a divvied dessert and cocktails, or a shared bottle of wine, the conversation flows into the night and the film lingers in your memory long after leaving the cinema.

As it marks its 73rd year, the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has once again done the hard work of choosing what restaurant to book after your movie. All you need to do is decide between dystopia and dinner at Barra, or supernatural black comedy and a Supernormal meal?

Here are the special events screening as part of MIFF’s Food & Film program , presented by Broadsheet.

Cumulus Inc x The Extraordinary Miss Flower

What do you do when you discover a suitcase filled with two decades’ worth of love letters? If you’re Icelandic singer-songwriter Emilíana Torrini, you make an album.

After Australian woman Geraldine Flower passed away in 2019, her daughter Zoe, her son-in-law and their good friend Torrini discovered a case of letters and photographs full of romance, passion and friendship that were sent to Flower in the ’60s and ’70s. Part documentary, part art film and part drama, The Extraordinary Miss Flower unpacks the suitcase that contained, in Torrini’s words, “enough love in these letters to fulfill a person for a hundred years”, and served as the inspiration for her latest album, Miss Flower.

It’s a relatively short film at just over an hour, so take your time afterwards to enjoy dinner at Andrew McConnell’s Cumulus Inc. Start with a cocktail on arrival, followed by seared tuna, roast chicken breast and roast pumpkin for mains, and a Valrhona soft chocolate with Earl Grey and orange caramel to finish.

The Extraordinary Miss Flower screens at 6pm on Monday August 11, followed by dinner at 7.45pm.

Barra x The Blue Trail

When 77-year-old Tereza is given an official government order to move into a senior housing colony, she makes a dash to chase her lifelong dream of flying a plane before she gets whisked away to her retirement. But her dream soon morphs into an Amazonian adventure where nothing is as it seems. Winner of the 2025 Berlinale Grand Jury Prize, The Blue Trail is the latest film from Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro. This dystopian drama is a celebration of the never-ending lessons of life: a joyous, rallying cry against ageism and a critique of authoritarianism.

Take Latin America from the screen to your table at Barra. This cantina-inspired spot by Peruvian-born chef Alejandro Saravia (also behind Farmer’s Daughters and Victoria) serves share plates inspired by Latin American street food alongside a range of Pisco-based cocktails and a wine list focused on South American varietals. The menu for the night includes fish and octopus ceviche, poached banana prawns, chicken arepas, a yellow mole tostada, country-style free-range chicken and a milk caramel custard with dulce de leche cream for dessert.

The Blue Trail screens at 3.45pm on Friday August 15, followed by dinner at 5.30pm.

Bossley Bar & Restaurant x Rebuilding

Following his critically acclaimed performance as a young farmer in 2017’s God’s Own Country , Josh O’Connor is back out in the pastures in Rebuilding. After his Colorado ranch is destroyed by wildfire, Dusty (O’Connor) finds himself living in an emergency caravan with his young daughter and discovers an unlikely community with an eclectic group of people who have also lost their livelihoods. The ensemble cast features The White Lotus ’s Meghann Fahy as Dusty’s ex-wife and young Aussie actor Lily LaTorre (Run Rabbit Run , Runt) as his daughter Callie-Rose.

After the film, head to Bossley Bar & Restaurant for a chic setting fit for chatting and grazing. You’ll be welcomed with a cocktail, and your meal comes with either a beer or glass of wine. Tables will get alternating serves of stracciatella with pear and hot honey, or kingfish ceviche to start. Alternating mains are a 28-day aged Gippsland rump cap and a Lakes Entrance king dory with brown butter sauce. For dessert? A take on classic tiramisu.

Rebuilding screens at 6.15pm on Wednesday August 20, followed by dinner at 8.15pm.

Supernormal x A Useful Ghost

In A Useful Ghost , a woman who has died of dust poisoning is reincarnated as a possessed vacuum cleaner to protect her husband from the same fate. Yep, you read that right. This absurdist fantasy is the directorial debut from Thai Teochew Hainanese filmmaker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke. Dazzling critics with its deadpan humour and reflections on grief, the film took out the top prize at Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week.

Another McConnell institution, the Hot-Listed Supernormal blends Japanese, Chinese and Korean cuisine in a sleek fit-out that hums with the glow of neon signs and light boxes. Get ready for this eerily symbolic film over dishes like raw snapper with salted daikon; Sichuan white-cut chicken; vegetable dumplings with shiitake XO sauce; a Ravens Creek pork chop; cos heart with perilla vinaigrette; and peanut butter parfait with salted caramel and soft chocolate.

A Useful Ghost screens at 8.45pm on Wednesday August 20 after a 6pm dinner.

Elio’s Place x Nineteen

Luca Guadagnino-produced coming-of-age film Nineteen follows 19-year-old Leonardo as he leaves his hometown of Palermo to study in London, although he eventually finds himself in Tuscany instead. It’s a heartfelt exploration of a young man grappling with the ecstasy and terror of realising the world is his oyster.

All-day European-style bistro Elio’s Place is well-suited to debrief about the film long into the night. On the menu: potato rosti with cheese fondue; cabbage skewers with hollandaise; ’nduja and ricotta toast; focaccia with miso butter; burrata and crispy chilli oil; pappardelle duck ragu; rump cap with bordelaise sauce; and torta setteveli (seven veils cake) for dessert.

Nineteen screens at 3.45pm on Thursday August 21, followed by dinner at 6pm.

The Fresh Collective at the Festival Hub x Mirrors No. 3

Director Christian Petzold’s taut, quiet psychodrama Mirrors No. 3 , which premiered at Cannes earlier this year, begins with a deadly car crash in rural Germany. The surviving passenger, played by Paula Beer, goes to recuperate at the home of her rescuer – but soon discovers all is not quite right with this adopted family.

Celebrate Petzold’s return to MIFF with a meal at the Festival Hub , where The Fresh Collective – the group behind Crafted by Matt Moran and Mod Dining at the Art Gallery of NSW – will serve a European-inflected meal including tuna crudo with radish and blood-orange dressing, and roast chicken with peperonata.

Mirrors No. 3 screens at 6pm on Friday August 22, followed by dinner at 7.30pm.

Antara x The Love That Remains

The Love That Remains is a quirky, fantastical and darkly comedic portrait of a fractured family. Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason directs a cast of his own children alongside Saga Garðarsdóttir and Sverrir Gudnason as parents going through a separation and figuring out how – and whether – to spend time together as a family.

After the film, head to dinner at Antara. Originally opened in 2023, Antara starts each day as a bakery and then transforms into an all-day restaurant. Since new head chef Juan Lantadilla Tapia (ex-Cutler & Co and Gimlet) took over late last year, the bakery and restaurant have worked together more closely than ever. And for this MIFF dinner, the menu leans Nordic with an Icelandic gravlax and seeded rye bread; Skull Island prawn with salt-baked celeriac soup (inspired by an Icelandic soup called humarsupa); anise-braised and smoked lamb; potato, wild mushrooms and blackcurrant with pickled red cabbage; and poached blueberries with skyr cream and spiced rye bread ice-cream.

The Love That Remains screens at 4pm on Saturday August 23, followed by dinner at 6.15pm.

Broadsheet is a proud media partner of the Melbourne International Film Festival. MIFF runs August 7–24 in select cinemas across the city.