15th Melbourne International Film Festival

From July 25th to August 10th the festival will run in Melbourne, Australia and there are many interesting sections in this fest. One of them is the so-called Ozploitation period considered as the most prolific and successful periods of Australian filmmaking. As a matter of fact the Opening film is a documentary Not Quite Hollywood by Mark Hartley’s celebrates the genre and its dubious artistic qualities.

The fest has the following sections

Africa! Africa! – Films from African countries
Altered States – A diverse selection of independent contemporary USA cinema (lucky the ones that are going to be able to watch The Guitar, Amy Redford, USA, 2008)
Animation Gallery – Thirty animation shorts and features
Backbeat – Music documentaries and concert footage
Border Patrol – Four films that explore the Israel-Palestian question (Waltz with Bashir is screened here)
Cannes Directors' Fortnight Tribute – Celebrating this famous parallel program of Cannes (I’m really envious of those that live in Melbourne – the special film for the 40th anniversary will be screened 40x15 and other great films!)
Documentaries
Edward Yang Tribute
Focus on Ozploitation (these are really crazy movies!)
Forbidden Pleasures – A selection of films that stroke the border between the erotic and the forbidden (most films belong to gay interest genre)
Free Radicals - Films that question, twist or simply deride accepted narrative and stylistic conventions (Obviously it has some VERY interesting films that I suggest you check here)
Homegrown- Australian fims
International Panorama (Obviously has many movies that I’m dying to see like Argentinean Lion’s Den!)
MIFF Premiere Film Fund – Australian films
Neighbourhood Watch – Asian films (will screen Ashes of Time Reduz! And other good movies.)
Next Gen – A selection of smart kids movies, not just for kids audiences… well, they have Persepolis here.)
Nightshift – cult classics
Retrospective on George Romero
Romanian Wave – well you know, my weakness! (Radu Muntean's Boogie with Anamaria Marinca and Christian Mungiu's Occident)
Shorts
Special Events

To check the films in all the sections go here. One of my favorite movie sites, Senses of Cinema, will be running daily reviews throughout the festival, so I’ll be checking.