MIFF Premiere Fund

Forcibly separated from her twin brother when they are orphaned, a melancholic misfit learns how to find confidence within herself amid the clutter of misfortunes and everyday life.

When Brent turns down his classmate Lola's invitation to the prom, she concocts a wildly violent plan for revenge.

When the body of his oldest friend is found buried in a shallow grave, Dan, a small-town cop, seeks answers from a volatile hermit who was the last person to see his friend alive. As Dan gets closer to the truth, he must confront his own personal demons and he discovers that hope can be found in unlikely places.

New Years Eve. 1999. Minnie discovers a bottle of time travelling tequila. Each shot takes her back to the start of the night - giving her a bottle’s worth of shots to win back her old flame Joe, and change the course of her millennium.

Through various modes of surveillance we observe an overprotective young woman, Winnie, and her disabled brother, Stevie, caught in a web of intrigue involving a bomb plot, inept anarchists, ambitious police and a corrupt politician. The duplicity of Winnie’s boyfriend, Conrad Verloc -political activist and police informant –propels these siblings down a deadly path. But justice may prevail in the aftermath, via the surveillance collected, compiled and presented by Special Crimes Sergeant Kylie Heat.

Shayda, a young Iranian woman living in Australia, finds refuge in a women’s shelter with her 6-year-old daughter, Mona. Having fled her husband, Hossein, and filed for divorce, Shayda struggles to maintain normalcy for Mona. Buoyed by the approach of Nowruz, she tries to forge a fresh start with new and unfettered freedoms. But when a judge grants Hossein visitation rights, he reenters their life, stoking Shayda’s fear that he’ll attempt to take Mona back to Iran.

When cricket obsessed Teddy Brown realizes his mates are growing up and moving on, he leads them and his D-Grade team on an audacious tour of India, where stumps fly, friendships fray and Ted learns that it's time to start playing shots for himself.

The chronicle of the life and great love of Otto Bloom, an extraordinary man who experiences time in reverse - passing backwards through the years only remembering the future.

As four teens navigate the flashpoint of adolescent relationships, their lives will be forever scarred by a tragedy that engulfs their city. Teenagers Billie and Laura, who live in Canberra’s suburban outskirts, are best friends and share everything – even, as it turns out, Laura’s boyfriend Danny, although Laura doesn’t know this. During the summer of Canberra’s bushfires, Billie’s mother welcomes the troubled Isaac into her care and his presence causes disarray in the girls’ friendship: Laura finds herself drawn to the gentle but intense newcomer while Billie’s unpredictable ways threaten self-destruction.

Peer behind the curtain as a cast of neurodivergent teens prepare to come of age and hit the stage in their school’s time-travelling, John Farnham–themed musical.

As notions of civil rights transformed across the world, so was the screen landscape reformed by the ascension of grassroots film movements seeking to challenge the mainstream. Some aspired to push form to its limit; others worked to destabilise what they saw as a homogenous industry, or to provoke questions around gender, sexuality, migration and race.

An idealistic film student is drawn into a shadowy and intoxicating world when she befriends an enigmatic performance artist.

ROCK N ROLL NERD is an intimate tale that charts Tim Minchin’s meteoric rise from obscurity to celebrity. Capturing every moment of Tim’s first frenzied break onto the comedy scene the documentary weaves never-before-seen performance footage, backstage antics, home footage and candid interviews into a funny and deeply personal story of love and ambition.

An elderly nun witnesses a young construction worker's fatal accident, compelling her to question the ethical principles of the institution she has devoted her life to.

Australian documentary follows eight female survivors of childhood sexual abuse who participate in a 2-year experimental recovery program that combines the physicality of boxing with the emotional power of expressive writing.

Big dreams wrestle bitter truths as three teenage girls pursue Olympic history. Shot over seven years, this coming-of-age documentary chronicles the journey from childhood to adulthood and the moments that define us.

Relive the most thrilling moments of Australia’s beloved tennis tournament in this chronicle of its ascent to top-seed status on the global stage.

‘memory film: a filmmaker’s diary’ is an immersive poetic documentary based on Jeni Thornley’s Super8 archive (1974-2003) filmed during the decades of her political and personal filmmaking, while producing ‘Maidens’, ‘To the Other Shore’, ‘Island Home Country’ and the collaborative feature ‘For Love or Money’. Documenting the activism of three decades amidst the intense sexual politics of radical feminism and social change, ‘memory film’ tells the inner story of a journey of liberation – gender fluidity, utopian feminism, love and its tribulations, the pleasure and pain of motherhood, violence against women, the desire for a world free of war and colonizing, and ultimately mortality and impermanence.

In Mongolia’s remote Tsakhir Valley, Batbold faces the greatest challenge of his young life: safeguarding 1,000 horses during the deadliest winter on record.

When director Sue Thomson’s 89-year-old mum, Margaret, begins to need additional help with day-to-day life, they face a decision that most families will encounter: whether to consider a residential aged-care facility; and, if so, how to find a suitable one amid a sector with a reputation for neglect and mistreatment. Margaret’s story becomes a springboard for an investigation of the political history of aged care in Australia, marred by a 40-year bipartisan privatisation agenda. As we hear from advocates, journalists and senior citizens who have experienced the system, a group of schoolkids discuss the situation we’ve reached with aged care and where we need to go from here – and of what they, and we, can expect in the future.