MIFF 2026: Melbourne International Film Festival

Join us for the Opening Night of MIFF 2026 with this hilarious comedy starring two of our all-time favourite actors. Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård lead this cheeky, star-studded and irresistible fable about a cranky fisherwoman and the sexy handwoven husband she wishes for. In a seaside village lost to time, a fisherwoman delivers the food relied on by the townsfolk, who barely tolerate her cantankerous presence. Unexpectedly named the next to wed and sick of the disdain, she commissions the local basketmaker to weave her the perfect husband, and he goes above and beyond. When you’re married to the hottest and handiest man around, however, jealousies inevitably flare up. Adapting Ursula Wills-Jones’s 2008 short story, this Sundance-premiering twist on a period love story – directed by Australian-born Eleanor Wilson and filmmaking (as well as real-life) partner Alex Huston Fischer, and including MIFF Accelerator alum David Michôd among its producers – is at once ingenious and charmingly irreverent. But it’s no straw-man depiction of middle-aged sexual wish fulfilment: the film uses its whimsical premise to critique small-mindedness, superstition and overzealous conservatism. Olivia Colman goes all-in for a role that recalls her fiery turn in The Favourite, while Alexander Skarsgård (Lee, MIFF 2024) is magnetic as a creature with more humanity than his human counterparts – testament to the practical effects by Joe Dunckley (Avatar) and WETA Workshop. Capped off with transportive cinematography by Oscar winner Lol Crawley (The Brutalist) and counting Peter Dinklage (The Toxic Avenger, MIFF 2025), Richard E. Grant and Melbourne’s own Elizabeth Debicki (The Tale, MIFF 2018) among its cast, Wicker is a fantasy romance that asks whether we truly know our heart’s desire.

MIFF and the AFL, supported by VicScreen, present five short documentaries centred on Australia’s game. A group of young Chinese Australian footballers come together; the first openly queer ex-AFL player steps back onto the field; a community fights for the safety and dignity of its children; a former AFLW player traces a path from her heroes to the new generation of African Australian stars; and cheer squad members prepare to face a club they haven’t beaten in a decade. Films in this package: Carn the Chinese! (dir. Angela How), For the Boys (dir. Mitchell Withers), Invincible Spirit (dir. Mark Thomson, David Callow), KURA: An African AFL Story (dir. Akec Makur Chuot, Meg Duncan) and North Melbourne Cheer Squad (dir. Jasper Caverly, Andrew Goode).

Take a 30-year journey with the beloved Australian alternative rock band, from humble beginnings to the harder aspects of growing up. Perth alt rockers Jebediah were a breed apart in the halcyon days of the late-90s and early-2000s Australian indie music scene. In stark contrast to the often volatile and soon-to-splinter groups they toured with, the easygoing quartet – lead singer Kevin Mitchell (aka Bob Evans), his drummer brother Brett, bassist Ness Thornton and lead guitarist Chris Daymond – stuck fast to one another. Commanding national attention on triple j and soon channelling the cred of multiple studio albums into their own record label, Jebediah seemed like quintessential industry survivors. But as the band entered its third decade, the freewheeling lifestyle of their youth had begun to cast a shadow. With recreation shifting to addiction and connections fraying, will these lifelong friends and creative partners find a way to keep the music alive? Built from a wealth of archival and home-movie footage ranging from the band’s humble high school beginnings through to the current day, as well as firsthand perspectives from local music icons such as Tim Rogers, Phil Jamieson and Janet English, Arlo Dean Cook’s MIFF Premiere Fund–supported documentary is a rocking roller-coaster ride and a candid cautionary tale about the price of fame.

Sandra Hüller’s knockout, Silver Bear–winning performance anchors this tragic folktale about a woman who poses as a male soldier in 17th-century Germany. When thinking about the world’s natural wonders, it’s likely the big stuff – the mountains, the canyons, the oceans – that first spring to mind. But what about those things you can’t see, such as light, gravity and quantum energy? Using a high-powered camera and absolutely no AI, Melbourne-based filmmaker Josef Gatti makes brilliantly manifest those intangible building blocks of our universe. Across 10 chapters, each dedicated to a single scientific concept, kaleidoscopic Petri dish displays are augmented by tracks from Nils Frahm and British electronic musician Rival Consoles. It’s nature, but like you’ve never seen it before. Beginning its life a decade ago as a series of shorts, Phenomena takes mesmerising final form as a full-length feature: a masterful melding of art and science that has toured documentary film festivals around the world. Gatti’s articulate and charming voiceover narration – crafted with the assistance of his father, a physics teacher – offers a mind-blowing, singular journey into the hidden world around us. This is the high school science lesson you’ve always wished you had.

After #MeToo broke the cultural silence on gender violence, survivors swiftly found themselves facing a new kind of silencing and fear as defamation laws became weaponized against women for speaking out. International human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson takes audiences into the courtroom and behind the headlines to reveal how the legal system is used to discredit and re-victimise survivors, with lawsuits designed to emotionally and financially ruin those who dare to speak their truth. Robinson brings unrivalled access to the women and journalists at the centre of high-profile legal battles across the globe. From International Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Selina Miles and Blayke Hoffman, SILENCED is a powerful, emotional and urgent documentary that challenges the devastating flaws maintaining the status quo within the justice system.

This screening might host a surprise filmmaker Q&A! In this award-winning Australian indie comedy, an unsuccessful writer, stuck living the same day on repeat on a subantarctic island, must find another unwitting victim to take his place. Amos, a failed novelist with a failed marriage, arrives on a remote southern island in full midlife-crisis mode. But his escape soon becomes a prison: he discovers he’s trapped infinitely reliving the same day, complete with the same dead birds, weird board games, tinned spaghetti and unexplained murders. The only way to get off this hamster wheel is to trick someone else into replacing you, and Amos’s estranged ex-wife, Gemma, seems like the perfect candidate – but her arrival complicates things, and Amos is forced to confront his past. Having landed a veritable alphabet of international film festival prizes – an Audience Award at Austin, Critics’ Prize at Brussels and Best Feature at Cleveland – Yesterday Island is a true crowdpleaser, a small-budget but exceptionally shot achievement in inventive worldbuilding. It also functions as a blackly funny parable about moral responsibility, evoking Greek myth to put its own unique spin on classic time-loop films like Groundhog Day, Palm Springs and One More Shot (MIFF 2025). Boosted by a game cast including acclaimed stand-up Ivan Aristeguieta, up-and-coming comic performer Florence Noble, and veteran character actors David Fane (Eagle vs Shark, MIFF 2007) and Francis Greenslade, Yesterday Island is a film you’ll want to revisit over and over again.