First Glance at Melbourne International Film Festival program

The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has revealed a “First Glance” at its programming for the upcoming 2025 festival.

From August 7 to 24 MIFF will screen hundreds of films at cinemas across Melbourne, some of which will be seen for the first time in Australia.

“MIFF is a really special celebration of cinema that brings Melbournians together,” MIFF artistic director Al Cossar said.

“First Glance is that first taste of what’s to come but there’s already some pretty incredible highlights that have been announced.”

The First Glance reveals 26 of the most anticipated films to feature at this year’s MIFF.

American singer and composer Julia Holter will be performing to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s classic 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc, at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Her band will be joined on stage by a local chorus of singers as they perform an original reimagining of the film’s score.

This year’s Cannes Film Festival Palm d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, by acclaimed Iranian director Jahar Panahi, will feature in this year’s MIFF.

Panahi’s work remains banned in his home country, despite his insistence that they are not political films. “Political films always take sides; they dictate and try to tell us what’s right and what’s wrong. A humanistic film would never do that. Instead of searching for the roots of a phenomenon, it merely bears witness to it,” Panahi once said.

The MIFF Premiere Fund helps to support new Australian films by providing minority financing. Seven premier fund supported films have been announced as part of the First Glance.

This includes the heartfelt Not Only Fred Dagg but Also John Clarke, a film about the late comedian John Clarke made by his daughter Lorin Clarke. “It’s so warm and beautiful and there’s so much joy to be had,” Cossar said.

In Spreadsheet Champions Australian director Kristina Kraskov follows six young people from around the world striving to compete at the Excel Spreadsheet World Championships.

Cossar said Pasa Faho was a beautiful family story that showed a very different side to Melbourne. The directorial debut of Nigerian Australia Kalu Oji tells the story of a father trying to reconnect with his son in suburban Melbourne.

Sophie Somerville’s Fwends is also an iconically Melbourne film according to Cossar. “It has a really fascinating comedic tone to it,” Cossar said.

The film centres on a young woman hosting her friend from Sydney over a weekend. They visit every iconic sight of Melbourne and through largely improvised dialogue paint a picture of modern friendship.

“A lot of films this year are about the dynamics of close groups of people, whether they be friends or family,” Cossar said.

The full MIFF program will be announced on July 10, nominees for the MIFF awards will be announced later in July.