After coming to a close last Sunday night with Shane Meadows’ This is England, the 56th Melbourne International Film Festival is pleased to announce that the 2007 festival equalled last year’s record high admissions figure of 180,000, ensuring budget has been made.
‘We are delighted and thrilled with the results of this year’s festival – Melbourne audiences have come out in record numbers again. If you were around the CBD during the 19 days you could feel the grip of the infamous MIFF buzz . We move into planning for 2008 with great confidence. Only 350 more sleeps,’ said MIFF Executive Director Richard Moore.
The festival had a total of 54 sell out sessions, including David Lynch’s Inland Empire, Accelerator alumni Ben Hackworth’s Corroboree, the world premiere of Peter Carstairs September, the world premiere of Beyond Our Ken, Steve Thomas’ Hope and the Spicks and Specks Trivia Night.
Anton Corbijn’s poetic film Control, about Joy Division’s lead singer, Ian Curtis was voted most popular feature film in the audience poll while Billy the Kid took out the Audience Award for Best Documentary. The audience award poll data showed that this year’s programme was better received than ever before.
Australian films rated extremely well with 6 homegrown films making the top 10 documentaries, including Words from the City, Beyond Our Ken, Dirty Three, In the Company of Actors, Forbidden Lie$ and Hope.
| Top 10 Features:
1. Control (Anton Corbijn, UK)
2. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungui, Romania)
3. Paprika (Satoshi Kon, Japan)
4. After The Wedding (Susanne Bier, Denmark)
5. Once (John Carney, Ireland)
6. Black Sheep (Jonathan King, New Zealand)
7. Eagle Vs Shark (Taika Waititi, New Zealand)
8. Half Moon (Bahman Ghobadi, Iran)
9. I Served King Of England (Jiri Menzel, Czech Republic)
10. Teeth (Mitchell Lichtenstein, USA)
|
Control |
(Also popular were Eytan Fox’s The Bubble, Peter Carstairs’ September, Michel Ocelot’s Azur And Asmar, Etgar Keret & Shira Geffen’s Jellyfish, Lars Von Trier’s The Boss Of It All, Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim, Tony Ayres’ The Home Song Stories, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain, Tom Kalin’s Savage Grace, Fredi Murer’s Vitus)
Top 10 Documentaries:
1. Billy The Kid (Jennifer Venditti, USA)
2. Words from the City (Rhys Graham & Natasha Gadd, Australia)
3. Beyond Our Ken (Melissa Mclean & Luke Walker, Australia)
4. Lagerfeld Confidential (Rodolphe Marconi, France)
5. Dirty Three (Darcy Maine, Australia)
6. In the Company Of Actors (Ian Darling, Australia)
7. Forbidden Lie$ (Anna Broinowski, Australia)
8. Sicko (Michael Moore, USA)
9. Hope (Steve Thomas, Australia)
10. Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (Stephen Kijack, USA)
(Other popular documentaries include: Mohammed Naqvi’s Shame, Paul Smaczny’s Knowledge is the Beginning, Tom Thurman’s Buy a Ticket Take The Ride: Hunter S Thompson, Julien Temple’s Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, Linda Hattendorf’s The Cats of Mirikitani, Susan Meiselas, Richard P. Rogers & Alfred Guzzetti’s Pictures of a Revolution, Paul Taylor’s We Are Together and Lawrence Johnston’s Night)
[release from Limelight PR]
