Every Australian can stream the virtual Melbourne International Film Festival’s movie highlights

This year, it doesn’t matter where you are in Australia, you too can get in on the action of one of the nation’s most exciting film line-ups.

Movie lovers won’t be squeezing into Melbourne’s theatres for this year’s edition of the Melbourne International Film Festival.

But that doesn’t mean MIFF doesn’t have one hell of a program for its 2020 virtual edition, which runs from August 6 to August 23 in your loungeroom.

The program features over 60 movies, 44 short films, talks, Q&As and more, including some highly anticipated premieres from high-profile filmmakers.

While not being able to experience the festival in person as usual, it does offer Australians in other cities and states a chance to get in on the action.

Tickets go on sale this Friday and while there are so many great picks, we’ve chosen some of the highlights we think you’ll be excited about.

FIRST COW: Independent director Kelly Reichardt’s latest, highly anticipated movie will be the MIFF Opening Night premiere. An insightful filmmaker who makes small stories feel big, Reichardt’s previous work includes Certain Women, Meek’s Cutoff and Wendy and Lucy.

First Cow is centred on a 19th century man who joins fur trappers on the frontier in Oregon and forms an unlikely friendship with a Chinese immigrant. Together, they chance upon a scheme that involves the cow of a wealthy landowner.

Moo.

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WENDY: Young American Oscar-nominated filmmaker Benh Zeitlin has taken eight years to follow-up his acclaimed Beasts of the Southern Wild. Wendy is that follow-up, and screens as MIFF’s Centrepiece film. Wendy is a reimagining of the Peter Pan story, set in the present day and focused on Wendy rather than the boy who wouldn’t grow up.

BLACK BEAR: Starring Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott ( Catch-22 ) and Sarah Gadon ( Alias Grace ) and directed by Lawrence Michael Levine, Black Bear debuted at Sundance earlier this year to great reviews. It’s a creatively structured psychodrama about a filmmaker who attends a retreat to unblock herself and becomes a manipulative, disruptive third wheel to another couple’s already fracturing relationship.

SHIVA BABY: A debut feature that rolled out of Emma Seligman’s short film, Shiva Baby takes that most uncomfortable of rituals – funerals, in this case, the Jewish observance of Shiva – and injects it with awkward humour about a young woman trying to get through it while balancing the demands of her parents, a former girlfriend and her sugar daddy.

Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt) is a queer coming-of-age love story.

ELLIE & ABBIE (& ELLIE’S DEAD AUNT): Australian filmmaker Monica Zanetti’s coming-of-age rom-com opened the Queer Screen Festival earlier this year and stars Rachel House and Marta Dusseldorp. The story is about high school captain Ellie who falls for the rebellious Abbie, trying to work up the guts to ask Abbie to the Year 12 formal. Then her dead aunt shows up as a ghost matchmaker.

PAPER CHAMPIONS: Directed by Jo-Anne Brechin and shot in Geelong, MIFF will be the world premiere for this Australian comedy starring Gary Sweet, John Tui, Kaarin Fairfax, Genevieve Morris and Tessa de Josselin. The film is about an unassuming photocopier salesman looking for love.

EMA: Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain (Jackie, No) set his latest film in the world of dance, about a young dancer (Mariana Di Girolamo) and a company director (Gael Garcia Bernal) whose relationship falls apart after they return a child they adopted to the orphanage. Ema has been described by The Guardian as “an aggressive seduction”.

Mariana Di Girolamo and Gael Garcia Bernal in Pablo Larraine’s Ema.

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LOOKY LOOKY HERE COMES COOKY: Hosted by Steven Oliver, Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky uses performance and music to showcase the experience of Captain Cook’s landing in Australia from a First Nations perspective. Among the featured artists are Kev Carmody, Birdz, Alice Skye and Mau Power.

THE PLASTIC HOUSE: Australian filmmaker Allison Chhorn is listed as the director, writer, producer, DP, composer, editor and production designer on The Plastic House, which speaks to how personal this project is. Described as a minimalist meditation on solitude and grief, it follows a young woman tending to the family’s greenhouse against the elements in the wake of her parents’ death.

SWEET THING: Winner of a Crystal Bear at this year’s Berlinale, Alexandre Rockwell’s (In the Soup) coming-of-age is a story of finding joy in the face of childhood trauma. Rockwell’s daughter plays Billie, a talented and aspiring singer with a loving but alcoholic father. Variety called Lana Rockwell’s performance “beguiling”.

Sweet Thing is Alexandre Rockwell’s first film since 2013.

NO HARD FEELINGS: The winner of Berlinale’s Teddy Award, given to a film with LGBTQI themes, No Hard Feelings is Faraz Shariat’s movie about a love story between a German-born Iranian exile and a refugee who meet when the former commits a minor crime and is sentenced to community service at a detention centre.

CODED BIAS: A Sundance premiere, documentary Coded Bias explores the invisible forces that fuel racial and gender-based prejudices, often systemic and unspoken. Filmmaker Shalini Kantayya looks at this pressing issue through technology platforms such as AI programming and surveillance, and their effects on social and personal experiences.

MARONA’S FANTASTIC TALE: A must for dog lover (which is everyone, right?), this heartwarming and tender animation is about a stray dog who looks back on all the various owners she’s had and the adventures she’s been on. Variety described the film as a “dazzling expressionistic view of the world”.

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