MIFF Notes 2019: Most Anticipated Films

MIFF has changed the way I view films.

Before, I always felt behind the curve, unwilling to see new movies at the cinema on my own as my anxiety threatened to get the better of me. I'd hoped my partner would be a film nerd just like me but he's not. And that's okay! But it has meant I've forced myself to become more open to the world to still get the satisfaction I craved, that moment where you talk to someone about cinema and their eyes light up in recognition.

First, it was a film club every Sunday.

Then, Melbourne Cinematheque every Wednesday.

And now, MIFF every August.

It blew my mind last year. 50+ films in 17 days. Many of the greatest films I saw in 2018 were at MIFF, and several of them impacted the way I view cinema. Wiseman's EX LIBRIS added a new lens for me to examine the way documentaries work and the exceptional Brazillian queer film Hard Paint has set a new standard for modern queer cinema to aspire to.

But more than the films I saw, the experience and insanity of MIFF, led me to some of my greatest friends, people who love cinema with the same passion I do and whose reccomendations lead me to discover new and exciting films. Listening to their unique perspective on film and just life in general allows me to feel whole. It's wonderful.

And, maybe, the biggest change has been opening myself up to reviews and criticisms. Last year's MIFF Notes destroyed me mentally and physically, compiling upwards of 3000 words every day after having seen 3-5 films was a very bad idea. But in those MIFF Notes, I found a new way for me to engage critically with cinema which has allowed me to get a MUBI account where I have reviewed every single film I've seen this year (just under 250 before MIFF).

The exhaustion I felt after last year's MIFF took months to recover from, and the guilt I felt about giving up on my notes was also tough. So, this year, I'm going to do something different. I don't know what my eventual plan will be whether it's a check-in every few days, every week or even just a final round-up. But I do know that I want to write. And to experience cinema. And to meet more people. My body will hate me for it after this, but honestly, the rewards are better than the sacrifices!

And now, without further ado, these are my top 10 most anticipated films from MIFF this year. This list (and my MIFF selections was helped immensely by keeping track of all the festival favourites and trailers that grab my attention in my Upcoming & Anticipated list which you can find here).

1. In Fabric

Image via IMDb

Peter Strickland's masterful The Duke Of Burgundy (which is also screening at MIFF) may be my favourite film of the decade for wrapping complex themes in a delightfully lurid package. His new feature about a killer dress looks to be just as spectacular. Basically everyone I've shown the trailer to is desperate to see it. Plus, Strickland is a guest of the festival this year, so I'll be seeing him in conversation with one of my favourite film theorists, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas! The hype is real.


2. The Queen

Image via The New Yorker

A legendary precursor to Paris Is Burning, this long unavailable film is screening in a new restoration. A drag doco from the 1960s? Sign me up!

3. Sequin In A Blue Room

Image via AFTRS

From the MIFF program: "Recalling the bold and vibrant queer stories of recent years like Hard Paint (MIFF 2018), Sequin in a Blue Room is a film for those interested in the ways today’s youth are exploring a newly queer world." Australian Hard Paint? Yass.

4. Your Face

Image via FilmTaiwan

Slow cinema has been something of a problem area for me but in MIFF 2018, I felt it becoming a bigger issue. Many of the films I saw there that I didn't enjoy were slow and meandering and it frustrated me that I couldn't get into their rhythm. It was only this year, when I saw Tsai Ming-Liang's exceptional Stray Dogs that the gentler mechanisms of slow cinema locked in place. I was therefore very excited to see a new Ming-Liang film playing at this year's MIFF. It looks to be a film featuring only people's faces as they stare back at you. Godfrey Reggio (Koyaanisqatsi) did something similar in his film, Visitors, but this looks to be even more meditative.

5. Long Day's Journey Into Night

Image via The Atlantic

I have seen very few 3D films. In fact, the last film I saw at MIFF, the slooooow Prototype, may have been the only one I've seen. I found that film achingly slow and still and coming at the end of a long two-week festival, it was not a pleasant experience. Bi Gan's new film features an hour long 3D sequence which looks eye-popping and insane. Truly a must-see cinema experience, something that was proven true when both sessions were among the first films to sell out.

6. Violence Voyager

Image via Fantastic Fest

A very late entry to my anticipated films, I stumbled upon this while browsing through the New Zealand Film Festival program. It's unique animation style intrigued me, reminding me of the eerie shortform paper-cutting anime horror Yami Shibai. I watched the very NSFW trailer for the first time with my family. They were shocked at how intensely fucked up it was. I was entranced. Should be a sickening and horrifically good time.

7. Monrovia, Indiana

Image via The New Yorker

Frederick Wiseman, the director of EX LIBRIS, has a new film out? It's about the American deep South? It's apolitical? That last point may have riled up The AV Club, but it's made me even more desperate to see it. One of my finest life achievements may have been convincing many of my film friends to check out a Wiseman after I couldn't stop raving about the 3 and a half hour library film.

8. The Souvenir

Image via Vanity Fair

Never seen a Joanna Hogg film, but this film got rave reviews when it premiered at Sundance earlier this year, and it features Tilda Swinton and her real-life daughter Honor Swinton Byrne!

9. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire

Image via Hollywood Reporter

Don't know a thing about this except it's by Celine Sciamma (who made the excellent Tomboy and the acclaimed Girlhood), has lesbian themes and got near universal praise at Cannes.

10. Sunset

Image via IndieWire

Hungarian director, Laszlo Nemes' debut film Son Of Saul was a horrifying, unforgettable look at concentration camps which memorably used the 4:3 aspect ratio to portray claustrophobic trauma. Again, don't know much about this, but the effectiveness of his first film makes this worth a look.

But then there are the films whose premise sounds too good to pass up.

• A very cinematic documentary on the power of water (Aquarela).
• A powerful look at gun violence in America (What You Gonna Do When The World's On Fire).
• A murder kitty in a bow tie (Koko-Di Koko-Da).
• An animated documentary about Luis Bunuel (Bunuel In The Labyrinth Of Turtles).
• A hilarious look at Karate and masculinity (The Art Of Self-Defense).
• Olivia Colman in a film about a snake-tamer cult (Them That Follow).
• Bjork in her feature debut (The Juniper Tree).
• Buzzy new anime about whales and the ocean (Children Of The Sea).
• A documentary about the first Maori woman to write and solo direct her own feature film as told by her son (Merata: How Mum Decolonised The Screen).
• A surreal look at soccer mums in a way reminiscent of Adult Swim's Infomercials (Greener Grass).
• A documentary about the history and impact of the Kung Fu film (Iron Fists And Kung Fu Kicks).
• A Brazilian science fiction film about sex in the future (Divine Love).
• A harrowing and hard to find 80s film about Brazilian street children (Pixote).
• A feminist update of Punch and Judy (Judy & Punch).
• A documentary about a woman who, in her late 40s, became a porn star (Morgana).
• A sure to be gutwrenching documentary about the nurses who cared for AIDS patients at the height of the crisis (5B)

As well as those, I'm also seeing new films by Ben Wheatley (Happy New Year, Colin Burstead), the Dardennes (Young Ahmed), Sergei Loznitsa (The Trial), Takashi Miike (First Love), Quentin Dupieux (Deereskin), Sophie Hyde (Animals) and Pedro Almodovar (Pain And Glory), as well as discovering new auteurs like Angela Schanelec (I Was At Home, But), Harmony Korine (The Beach Bum) and Hong Sang-soo (Hotel By The River).

August is my favourite time of year and I cannot wait for the exhaustion and exhilarating MIFF experience. Talk in a few weeks if I'm still alive.