Walls and Mirrors: Iranian Films at the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival Adrian Danks July 2012 2012 MIFF Dossier The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has showcased the New Iranian Cinema since a special focus in 1993 called “Spotlight Iran”. It has routinely highlighted particular peaks and trends, and has con...
Old Saint Nick: We Can’t Go Home Again and Don’t Expect Too Much Blaine Allan July 2012 2012 MIFF Dossier Commemorating Nicholas Ray in his centenary year, in 2011 his last feature-length motion picture, We Can’t Go Home Again (1973-), started doing laps around the festival circuit, sometimes accompanied by Don’t E...
“A little piece of a big, big universe”: Beasts of the Southern Wild Daniel Eisenberg July 2012 2012 MIFF Dossier “The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece, the entire universe will get busted.” - Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) in Beasts of the Southe...
“Every Official Knows What the Problems Are”: Interview with Chinese Documentarian Zhao Liang Dan Edwards July 2012 2012 MIFF Dossier Zhao Liang’s Shang fang (Petition, 2009) is one of the most celebrated – and grueling – works of the independent Chinese documentary movement. Filmed over more than a decade spent among some of the most disadva...
Seriously Funny: History and Humour in The Sapphires and Other Indigenous Comedies Rose Capp July 2012 2012 MIFF Dossier The Sapphires (Wayne Blair, 2012) opens in an idyllic rural setting. A group of young Aboriginal girls run home across the paddocks in the fading evening light to sing for a gathering of family and friends. But...
Alternative Archives and Individual Subjectivities: Ou Ning’s Meishi Street Luke Robinson July 2012 2012 MIFF Dossier In 2001, to national jubilation, Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics. In the seven years that followed, the city underwent a makeover on a scale unparalleled since the aftermath of the 1949 revolution. While ...
Coeur fidèle Adrian Danks July 2012 2012 MIFF Dossier I just want to say this: you have to love it and hate it at the same time – and love it as much as you hate it. This fact alone proves that the cinema is an art with a very well-defined personality of its own. ...
The Blindfold Mike Walsh July 2012 2012 MIFF Dossier Garin Nugroho’s Rindu kami padamu (Of Love and Eggs, 2004) is a warmly utopian picture of Indonesian village life that stresses a supportive community with the mosque – literally and figuratively – at its centr...
Street Level Visions: China’s Digital Documentary Movement Dan Edwards July 2012 2012 MIFF Dossier In 2012, the 61st Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) will feature “Street Level Visions: Indie Docs from China”, a retrospective of seven digital documentaries produced over the past eight years by in...
The Affluent and the Effluent: Wang Jiuliang’s Beijing Besieged by Waste Christen Cornell July 2012 2012 MIFF Dossier About halfway between Japan and the East Coast of North America lies the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an immense swirl of plastic fragments estimated to be at least twice the size of France. A morning’s researc...
