Aftersun Director Charlotte Wells Is Judging MIFF’s Bright Horizons Festival

With wins and nominations at the Cannes Film Festival, British Independent Film Awards, BAFTAs and even an Academy Award nomination for its leading man, Paul Mescal, it’s hard to believe Aftersun was Charlotte Wells’s first feature-length film.

The coming-of-age film was released in 2022, which was also the inaugural year of the Melbourne International Film Festival’s (MIFF) Bright Horizons competition.

“MIFF was always on my radar as a festival I would just love to play at but never did. And then I had the opportunity with Aftersun, which was the first year of this Bright Horizons competition. I came out for about five days. I flew directly from Edinburgh, where the film had just premiered,” Wells tells Broadsheet.

“I had a really special time. Being part of the competition specifically kind of gave me an opportunity to meet other filmmakers. Festivals are funny for directors. I feel like there isn’t that much interaction between filmmakers, sometimes you can feel kind of siloed. We had this kind of crew and it was really fun. There’s a few people from that [Bright Horizons] group that I’m still in touch with,” she says. “I was invited back last year to participate on the jury, and I couldn’t. And this year came around, and I kind of nudged the team and asked whether that invitation might still be available for this year. And it was.”

Wells is the jury president of the Bright Horizons panel this year. Alongside jury members Tamala, Alex Ross Perry, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Col Needham, Nam Le and Caitlin Yeo, she will award a $140,000 cash prize to one of ten first- or second-time filmmakers.

This year’s nominees include First Light, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Urchin and The Rivals of Amziah King.

While there can only be one winner, history suggests that each of these filmmakers is standing on the cusp of a great career. Wells herself lost out on the top prize to Anisia Uzeyman’s Neptune Frost in 2022, but her deeply personal film Aftersun continued on to critical acclaim.

But with success comes pressure, and the pressure of a successful debut is something that Wells now has to contend with. In many ways, she says that she’s envious of the filmmakers in this year’s competition.

“I think there is something very freeing in making a first film which you don’t necessarily anticipate people seeing widely. (At least I didn’t.) I think you’re less shackled by perceived expectations… There’s something very true in your fearlessness to make that first project. And I think often they’re a really long-time coming,” says Wells.

As for what’s next, Wells admits that “question’s kind of hovering over [her] head”. “I feel obliged to subvert that curiosity, I suppose… but really, I think I’ve landed back in the place that I started, which is just that there will never be a greater pressure than that I put on myself. A film is such a commitment, it’s years of your life at an absolute minimum. I was never going to take that lightly. For me, it always has to be something that I’m willing to give that much of myself to, because I’m not able to go into something in half measures. I know they will consume me. It’s what I love about it, but it has to be for something that feels right and feels worth being consumed for – or by.”