'Neptune Frost', directed by Anisia Uzeyman and Saul Williams, is the winner of the Melbourne International Film Festival's inaugural Bright Horizons Award, while Jub Clerc won the Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award.
'Sweet As', the debut feature from Nyul Nyul/Yawuru filmmaker Jub Clerc, is dubbed "The Breakfast Club meets the outback".
"We made a horror film and it's found this wonderful audience. It's definitely unexpected. And I wouldn't even necessarily say that our film is a straight horror film, but obviously as soon as you squash someone's head, it tends to not really fall in any other genre, no matter what the rest of the movie's about."
Sue Thomson's 'Under Cover' follows the plight of ten women as they find themselves too old to be employed, struck down with illness, unable to get back into the workforce, and dealing with the aftermath of difficult breakups and divorce.
The main character in Alena Lodkina's sophomore feature 'Petrol' may be a filmmaker of Russian background, but the writer-director insists it's a personal tale, not necessarily an autobiographical one.
Visual artist Del Kathryn Barton's feature debut 'Blaze', which combines live-action, puppetry and animation, centres on a teenager who processes her trauma by ascending into a fantasy world.
Melbourne International Film Festival returns to metro cinemas with a bumper program, and 70th anniversary celebrations that include a major retrospective and cinematic homages to the festival from Ivan Sen, Justin Kurzel and Soda Jerk.
Alena Lodkina's sophomore feature 'Petrol' has been selected for Locarno’s Cineasti del Presente (‘directors of the present’) program, dedicated to first and second features by emerging global talents.