A dramatic retelling of one of Australia's most infamous killings will be a major drawcard at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival.
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Trailer: MIFF 2016
The line-up of films for the Melbourne International Film Festival 2016 is released.
Joe Cinque's Consolation, adapted from Helen Garner's book about the death of a Canberra man after he was given a deliberate overdose of heroin by his girlfriend while he slept, will have its world premiere at the festival, which is now in its 65th year.
Wentworth's Maggie Naouri delivers a stunning performance as Anu Singh, who was found guilty of manslaughter in 1999, in the film from first-time feature director Sotiris Dounoukos.
![Jerome Meyer as Joe and Maggie Naouri as Anu Singh in <i>Joe Cinque's Consolation</i>, making its world premiere at MIFF ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170817152427im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/z/7/6/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gpx1ek.png/1469281254617.jpg)
During Singh's trial it became clear that many of her friends and acquaintances had known she planned to kill her boyfriend but none did anything to stop her.
"I watched this film and was left completely broken by it, and ran out the next day and read the book," says Michelle Carey, artistic director of MIFF. "I was fascinated about how this could happen – how a life could fall through so many hands."
The festival opens on Thursday July 28 with another Australian feature debut, Cris Jones' The Death and Life of Otto Bloom, billed as the biography of "an extraordinary man who experiences time in reverse". It stars Xavier Samuel as the title character, and boasts the first on-screen pairing of mother and daughter Matilda Brown and Rachel Ward (daughter and wife, respectively, of Bryan Brown, and both directors in their own rights as well as actors).
Hell or High Water, a neo-Western starring Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine and Ben Foster, is the closing night film.
![Beware the Slenderman.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170817152427im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/x/1/r/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gpx1ek.png/1467977502011.jpg)
Veteran English director Terence Davies will be a guest of the festival, with his film Sunset Song featuring in the new Headliners program, alongside works by a dozen other high-profile directors, including Jim Jarmusch (Paterson), Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper), Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden), and perennial festival bad boy Nicolas Winding-Refn (The Neon Demon).
Costume designer Sandy Powell will give a masterclass – billed as a "behind the seams look" at her craft – at ACMI in a joint presentation between MIFF and ACMI, which is hosting the Scorsese exhibition. The second of Powell's three Oscars came in 2005 for her work on his film The Aviator.
![Kirsten Stewart stars in Olivier Assayas' <i>Personal Shopper</i>.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170817152427im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/y/r/v/4/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gpx1ek.png/1469421490810.jpg)
Other highlights of the 18-day festival include a fully restored Proof, the 1991 debut feature from The Dressmaker's Jocelyn Moorhouse, starring Hugo Weaving, Genevieve Picot and an impossibly young Russell Crowe; a special screening of Innocence, with panel discussion by two of its stars, husband and wife Terry Norris and Julia Blake, in tribute to the late Paul Cox; a documentary exploring the bizarre internet meme of the Slenderman, and the real-life stabbing murder it inspired; and a pair of movies about the on-air suicide in 1974 of journalist Christine Chubbuck, the pseudo-documentary Kate Plays Christine, in which an actress prepares to play the role of Chubbuck, and the narrative feature Christine, in which English actress Rebecca Hall actually does.
"Something that's emerged for us this year in both the features and the documentaries is the true stories – Joe Cinque, Christine, The Slenderman – and true crime," says Carey.
"On that front, we've also got the world premiere of The Family, the documentary on the cult that was led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne. And it suggests the cult may still be active; some of the people interviewed in the film are described as being current members."
Another theme Carey says she noticed in scouting films for this year's program was the focus of refugee stories, hence the inclusion of six films on the subject under the banner Seeking Refuge.
The musically oriented Backbeat has documentaries on Sharon Jones, The Stooges, Gary Numan and Frank Zappa, plus the Chet Baker biopic Born to be Blue, starring Ethan Hawke. There's a Jerry Lewis retrospective featuring 12 of his features as director (but not, for better or worse, the never-released Holocaust film The Day the Clown Cried). And there's a program of films by the groundbreaking women of New York's independent cinema scene in the 1970s and 1980s, including Smithereens (1982) from Susan Seidelman, whose following film, Desperately Seeking Susan, marked Madonna's first significant acting role (and, some might say, her last).
It's a rich line-up but for Carey the pick of the festival is Toni Erdmann, a German comedy-drama about a man attempting to reconnect with his adult daughter.
"It was the hit of Cannes and I think that was because a lot of auteur festivals can be quite serious, but this film is just very warm and unexpectedly funny," Carey says. "It's just a wonderful observation of awkwardness, and that's something I think most of us can relate to at some level."
The full festival program will be in The Age on Friday, and tickets are on sale the same day.
The Age is a media partner of the Melbourne International Film Festival.
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