Melbourne International Film Festival
15 July 2015 by News Desk
The 2015 annual Melbourne International Film Festival will feature over 250 feature films plus documentaries and film shorts.
The festival involves 12 venues including ACMI, the Forum Theatre, and Kino, along with newer entries like Hoyts and the Treasury Theatre, as well as some new to the festival including the Comedy Theatre, Grey Gardens in Fitzroy and the Deakin Edge in Federation Square.
There’s some highly hyped and acclaimed fare coming directly from American film festivals like the acclaimed Me & Earl & the Dying Girl, the David Foster Wallace biopic The End of the Tour, ultra-hip coming-of-age wonder Dope, the Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis-starring Sleeping With Other People, and the much-hyped sex comedy The Overnight.
From elsewhere in the world, there’s Louder Than Bombs – the English language debut from Norwegian director Joachim Trier which stars Jesse Eisenberg, the Larry Clark-directed The Smell of Us, the New Zealand horror/comedy pastiche Deathgasm, the similarly spectacular looking post-apocalyptic BMX coming-of-age romslasher Turbo Kid from Canada and NZ, and the graphics masterpiece in the Gillian Anderson (pictured)-starring Robot Overlords from the UK.
There’s a massive range of documentaries on offer, from the poignant and moving cancer video game creation of Thank You For Playing, to the Nicolas Winding Refn “Hearts of Darkness”-esque filmmakers portrait in My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, to the stark and confronting look at the prevalence of sexual assault at US college campuses in The Hunting Ground, to music-focused fare like Colin Hay: Waiting On My Real Life, focusing on the legendary Men at Work frontman; or Danny Says, which takes a look at the influential manager, journalist, and industry figurehead behind acts such as The Ramones, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, MC5, Alice Cooper, and The Doors; or Salad Days, which delves into the little explored by influential Washington DC hardcore punk scene of the 80s that spawned acts like Minor Threat, Fugazi, Dag Nasty, Government Issue, Bad Brains and the enduring Dischord Records. There’s even a special screening of the seminal Beatles’ film Yellow Submarine.
MIFF runs from July 30th until August 16th.
