Last week we let you know about the feature films in French, and short films in French showing at the Melbourne International Film Festival 2024 (MIFF 2024). In today’s article, we let you know about other films with a French connection at MIFF 2024. These aren’t in French but are multinational productions where one of the countries is France or part of the Francophonie. There’s also a bonus film about the impressionists.
Countries: Netherlands, France, India, Luxembourg
Languages: Malayalam, Hindi
Drama
Director: Payal Kapadia
The first Indian film to screen in Cannes competition in 30 years is a sensuous tale of two nurses, their romantic entanglements and a mystical trip to the coast.
USA, Germany, French Polynesia
Italian
Documentary
Director: Victor Kossakovsky
Rock your world with this mesmerising documentary about the increasingly impermanent building blocks of civilisation.
Behind the Mountains (Oura el jibel)
Countries: France, Tunisia, Belgium, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar
Languages: Tunisian Dialect
Fantasy, Drama
Director: Mohamed Ben Attia
A downtrodden father literally takes flight from the strictures of society in this supernaturally tinged, Tunisia-set odyssey.
Countries: France, Denmark, Qatar, China
Language: Mandarin
Drama
Director: Jianjie Lin
This taut, visually inventive Chinese thriller has drawn comparisons to buzzy social-class parables Saltburn and Parasite.
Countries: France, Sweden, Denmark, Georgia, Türkiye
Languages: English, Georgian, Turkish, Russian
Drama
Director: Levan Akin
And Then We Danced (MIFF 2019) director Levan Akin’s Teddy Jury Award–winning follow-up is a luminous salute to the various communities of Istanbul.
Countries: USA, France
Language: English
Documentary
Director: Raoul Peck
Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro, MIFF 2017) profiles the man who exposed apartheid in South Africa in this co-winner of the Cannes L’Œil d’Or for Best Documentary)
Countries: France, Japan
Language: Japanese
Animation
Directors: Yōko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita
This unconventional and delightfully wacky anime conjures a rotoscoped dream world as a grief-stricken girl befriends a giant bipedal cat spirit.
Countries: France, Japan, Italy, China, Portugal
Language: Portuguese
Drama
Director: Miguel Gomes
This Cannes Best Director–winning Asian odyssey spectacularly mashes up time and place, genre and form, to transport audiences somewhere sublime.
Countries: France, Canada, Ukraine
Russian, Ukranian
Documentary
Director: Oksana Karpovych
A haunting psychological portrait of invasion, this Berlinale-awarded documentary covertly listens in as Russian troops call home.
Countries: France, Canada
Languages: English, Arabic, Hebrew
Documentary
Director: Tal Barda
This vital documentary from the streets of Israel and Palestine charts a five-time Nobel-nominated doctor’s mission to turn personal tragedy into worldwide hope.
Countries: France, Taiwan, Singapore
Languages: Mandarin, Taiwanese, Thai
Director: Chiang Wei Liang, Yin You Qiao
Drama
An undocumented Thai caregiver grapples with exploitation in this evocative portrait that received the Caméra d’Or Special Mention at Cannes.
Countries: Germany, France, Brazil
Language: Portuguese
Drama
Director: Karim Aïnouz
From Cannes competition lands a colourful, queered and beachside-set erotic thriller in which desire and destiny clash in a seedy sex hotel.
My Favourite Cake (Keyke mahboobe man)
Country: Germany, Iran, France, Sweden
Language: Farsi
Drama
Director: Maryam Moghadam, Behtash Sanaeeha
Tender and funny yet politically daring, this double Berlinale-winning late-life romance is guaranteed to steal your heart.
Countries: Germany, France, Dominican Republic, Namibia
Languages: Spanish, German, Afrikaans, Mbukushu
Experimental
Director : Nelson Carlos De Ios Santas Arias
The strange and tragic tale of Pepe, the late ‘cocaine hippo’ once owned by Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar – as narrated by the ghost of the beast himself.
Countries: Germany, UK, France, India
Languages: Hindi
Drama, Thriller
Director: Sandhya Suri
Premiering in Cannes Un Certain Regard, this scathing, subversively feminist take on the police procedural puts modern-day India under scrutiny.
Country: Germany, UK, France, Greece, Ireland
Language: English
Drama
Director: Ariane Labed
An unsettling and oneiric tale of sisterhood is French actor Ariane Labed’s Cannes-premiering directorial debut, based on a Gothic novel.
Countries: USA, France, Norway, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Qatar, Türkiye, Nepal
Tibetan, Nepalese
Drama
Director: Min Bahadur Bham
The first Nepalese film to screen in competition at the Berlinale follows the physical and spiritual Himalayan journey of a woman on a mission to see truth prevail.
Countries: USA, Mexico, France
Language : Spanish
Drama, Thriller, Crime
Directors: Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez
A young boy is orphaned by the cartel is up against inheriting a life of crime in this powerful coming-of-age story from an award-winning Mexican film-making duo
Countries: USA, UK, France
Language: English
Drama, Comedy, Horror
Director: Coralie Fargeat
Demi Moore satirises Hollywood ageism in this audacious and gory feminist body horror that was the talk of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Country: Germany, France, Austria, Somalia
Language: Somali
Drama
Director: Mo Harawe
Hope and familial bonds thrive in dangerous conditions in this ground-breaking feature – the first ever Somali film to screen at Cannes.
Countries: Germany, Netherlands, UK, France, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Palestine
Language: English, Greek, Arabic
Drama
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Acclaimed documentarian Mahdi Fleifel makes his fiction debut with a Midnight Cowboy inspired Palestinian refugee story.
Who do I belong to (Mé el Aïn ماء العين)
Countries: France, Canada, Tunisia
Language: Arabic
Drama
Director: Meryam Joobeur
In this evocative and ethereal mystery, a soothsaying matriarch wrestles with the darkness when her jihadist son returns from Syria.
FILMS SOLELY FROM THE FRANCOPHONIE THAT AREN’T IN FRENCH AT MIFF 2024
Histoires d’Amérique: Food, Family and Philosophy
Countries: France, Belgium
Languages: English, Yiddish
Experimental
Chantal Akerman’s newly restored portrait embraces Jewish New York, from trauma and resilience to generous helpings of Borscht Belt jokes.
Countries: France, Canada,
Language: English
Director: David Cronenberg
Drawing on his response to his wife’s death, David Cronenberg fashions a deeply personal meditation on loss, longing and grief, filtered through a necro-techno body-horror lens
Countries: France, Canada
Language: English
Horror, Thriller
Director: RKSS
In this gleefully deranged slasher, six Gen Z activists get more than they bargained for when they break into a furniture store and face a disgruntled – and bloodthirsty – security guard.
Country: USA
Language: English
Documentary, animation
Director: Dylan Andrew Pearce
Plunge between the brushstrokes of impressionist artworks in this 3D spectacle that honours their daringly modern beauty.
KEY INFO FOR MIFF 2024
WHAT: Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF 2024)
WHERE: A variety of cinemas and locations in Melbourne and surrounds.
WHEN: 8 – 25 August 2024
HOW: Purchase your tickets via the festival website. If purchasing individual tickets you can purchase them via the relevant film’s link provided above. Or if you wish to purchase a pass to see multiple films at a discount, then you can do so here
HOW MUCH:
There are a variety of ticket options depending on how many films you choose to see and when you choose to see them
Individual film tickets
- Full $27
- Concession $22
- Group of 10+ $20.50
- Blaktix (discounted tickets for members of the First Nations community) $13
Off-Peak Individual film tickets (off-peak weekdays before 5pm)
- Full: $23.50
- Concession: $20.50
- Members: $18
- Blaktix (discounted tickets for members of the First Nations community) $13
U26 Pass: 3 films on weekdays before 5pm $30
Bright Horizons Pass: 3 standard film screenings from the Bright Horizons competition strand of the festival program (See the films included in that here)
- Full $57
- Concession: $46.50
- Member: $43
Multipass 6: 6 standard film screenings
- Full Price: $146
- Concession: $119
- MIFF Members $111
Multipass 12: 12 standard film screenings
- Full Price: $259.50
- Concession: $211.50
- MIFF Members $197
Deluxe Membership / Festival Passport– attend every standard film screening at the festival $650
—
