Melbourne International Film Festival 2007 launch

I'm a sucker for a good festival, and being a film fan (as opposed to a cineaste, who is the sort of person who takes their movies far more seriously than I) the annual Melbourne International Film Festival marks a happy time of year for me: despite queuing in the cold, and the inevitable festival flu that seems to do the rounds in the second week!

I've just come straight from the launch of MIFF 2007, and am already excited by what the pleasantly scruffy new festival director Richard Moore has in store for us this year. Here are just some of the highlights:

For starters, Moore has abandoned the relatively recent tradition of opening and closing the festival with an Australian film; instead of nationalism, he's gone with quality (we hope!).

This year's opening night movie is cinematic provocateur Michael Moore's latest, an attack on the US health system, or rather the lack thereof, SICKO; while the closing night feature is the hard-hitting, autobiographic drama, THIS IS ENGLAND, about skinhead culture and family ties, directed by Shane Meadows and set in the fascist England of PM Maggie Thatcher.

New elements include:

• a global Indigenous showcase, World Stories, which will feature A SISTER'S LOVE, the latest film by Ivan Sen, director of the sublime BENEATH CLOUDS;
  
• the Israeli focused package, Stars of David, featuring the latest feature from the director of YOSSI & JAGGER, Eytan Fox - THE BUBBLE;
  
• a horror package, Full Moon Fever, which includes the Australian premiere of the much-anticipated (at least by me) Kiwi horror-comedy BLACK SHEEP, and the Canadian zombie comedy and Billy Connolly vehicle, FIDO;
  
• and, Forbidden Pleasures, a provoctive package exploring the pleasures of the flesh and other titillations.

Local features include CORROBOREE by Ben Hackworth (a graduate of the festival's Accelerator program for emerging filmmakers, which elicted groans and pained whispers when Moore compared it to Anna Kokinnos's abyssmal Book of Revelation); the world premiere of Lawrence Johnston's NIGHT, an elegaic exploration of nocturnal Australia (the trailer for which evoked a Koyaanisqatsi-style experience); a much anticpated production of HAMLET; and Tony Ayres already-acclaimed HOME SONG STORIES, a memoir about his mother's immigrant experience.

In total, some 387 films at last count; approximately 178 Australian premieres; and nine world premieres.

MIFF 2007 runs from July 25 - August 12. Bring it on!