Melbourne international film festival 2019: 10 things to see and do
Next month’s Melbourne international film festival boasts the largest program in the event’s 68-year history, with 259 feature films, 123 shorts and 16 virtual reality (VR) experiences.
It is also a notable year in terms of venues, with screening locations expanded to include the newly refurbished and very schmicko Capitol theatre. The (re)launch of a strikingly beautiful cinema smack-bang in the heart of the city is not exactly a regular occurrence, so you might want to consider factoring that into your film picking decisions.
Here are 10 highlights from this year’s program.
1. Jeff Goldblum movie marathon
Last year I attended the festival’s overnight Cage-a-Thon event, which screened back-to-back Nicolas Cage movies for 13 consecutive godforsaken hours. I emerged from it a dried out husk of a man: vexed of spirit, loathsome of visage, crushed of soul, flattened of butt.
In other words: good times. This year’s MIFF marathon will screen nothing but Jeff Goldblum films – including The Fly, Independence Day, Thor: Ragnarok and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
2. La Flor
Continuing the theme of outrageous excessive cinema experiences, there’s also La Flor – a 14-hour (!) Argentinian film told in six parts, which will screen in three sessions with intervals. Director Mariano Llinás’s highly ambitious film spans multiple genres including musical melodrama, satirical documentary and espionage thriller.
3. The Beach Bum
There’s no other auteur quite like the decorum-slaying, trash-humping, whacked-out indie maverick Harmony Korine, the kind of provocateur who will never outlive the label “enfant terrible”. His first feature film since 2012’s Spring Breakers sees him team up with Matthew McConaughey, who plays a washed-up stoner poet.
4. The Juniper Tree
Good news for Björk fans! The little-seen 1990 feature film that showcases the singer-songwriter’s cinema debut, The Juniper Tree, has been spit polished with a new 4K restoration. Its writer, director and editor, Nietzchka Keene, was inspired by a lesserknown Brothers Grimm fairytale. Richard Brody from the New Yorker described the film as a “stark and lyrical drama” with “stunningly spare yet phantasmagorical images.