The 74th Melbourne International Film Festival opens on Thursday night with the Australian premiere of Wicker, screening as the opening night gala at Hoyts Melbourne Central and The Capitol.
Wicker is directed by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer, who are partners in work and in life, and stars Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgard and Peter Dinklage. It premiered at Sundance earlier this year. Wilson was born in Australia, which gives the opening slot a local claim beyond the premiere itself.
The festival runs to 23 August with more than 300 screen works, taking in feature films, shorts and XR. Screenings run across Melbourne and at eight regional Victorian locations. MIFF Online follows, available nationally from 14 to 30 August.
The competitive program is led by the Bright Horizons Award, worth $140,000 and open to filmmakers making their first or second feature. Total prize money across the MIFF Awards is above $300,000, which puts the festival among the more heavily endowed on the international circuit. Winners are announced on 22 August.
Armani Beauty joins this edition as a major partner, presenting the Armani Beauty Cinema Club and the Shorts Awards strand. That strand carries a new Talent of Tomorrow Award for participants in the MIFF Accelerator Lab, the festival's development program for emerging directors.
Corporate partnership on that scale is now standard for festivals of this size, and it sits alongside public money rather than replacing it. The two are different instruments. A grant to a festival or a development lab buys access and career pathways for filmmakers who have not yet built an audience. A brand partnership buys proximity to one that already exists. Both are visible in this program, and the Accelerator Lab award is where they meet.
The regional and online components are the part of the model that has changed most. An 18 day festival anchored to two Melbourne venues reaches the people who can get to Melbourne. Eight regional locations and a national online window are what determine whether the rest of the program's audience is in the room at all.
Al Cossar is the festival's artistic director. The program he has assembled leans toward volume and range rather than a tightly curated selection, which is a defensible choice for a festival whose competitive strands are aimed at filmmakers still establishing themselves.
Wicker screens Thursday night. The full program runs to 23 August, with award winners announced on 22 August and MIFF Online open until 30 August.
