The Melbourne Women in Film Festival returns for its eighth annual celebration of dynamic film-making by women and gender-diverse practitioners. This year, MWFF will focus on how filmmakers respond to their environments through storytelling, featuring films by Jazz Money, Jeni Thornley, and Kitty Green. The program will touch on themes of sustainability, the climate crisis and contemporary social and cultural environments affecting women and gender diverse people, through both live and online screenings, as well as panel discussions and workshops.

Opening night features a screening of WINHANGANHA (Wiradjuri language meaning Remember, know, think), a lyrical journey through the lens of acclaimed Wiradjuri artist, Jazz Money. This film is a poem in five acts examining the impact of the horrors, joys and beauties held within the archives on First Nations people. Commissioned by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australiain 2023, the film explores storytelling and resistance, questioning the power and position, storyteller and the stories told set against a backdrop of archival footage and original composition. It includes original poetry written and performed by Jazz, and an original score by Filipino-Aboriginal rapper and composer DOBBY (Rhyan Clapham). Following the screening of WINHANGANHA, Jazz Money will host a Q&A session.

Closing Night spotlights Memory Film: a Filmmaker’s Diary, a poetic documentary by Jeni Thornley. Drawing on her Super 8 archive (1974-2003), the film chronicles decades of activism and social change such as films Maidens, To the Other Shore, Island Home Country and the collaborative feature For Love or Money. After the screening, Thornley will host a Q&A discussion to conclude the 2024 MWFF season.

Narrated by Sarah Snook, Carbon: the Unauthorised Biography is an unorthodox documentary that reveals the paradoxical story of the element that builds all life, and yet may end it all. Directed by Daniella Ortega and Niobe Thompson, Carbon will play on the Sunday.

On the Friday, Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel, starring Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick, will screen. The film follows the unnerving experience of two Americans in a remote Australian Outback mining town, exploring themes of friendship and control.

The festival will once again host panel talks and discussions, co-presented by research partner, Monash University. The full program will be revealed February 29 and once again includes regular short film sessions – Freshly Squeezed Shorts and Next Gen shorts, an education panel and the closing night movie.