Open Your World: Melbourne’s International Film Festival Is Back
Breaking up the dredge of the rainy Melbourne winter, Australia’s largest film festival brings together films from over 60 countries to the screens of Naarm, boasting over 270 screen works, including documentaries, shorts and feature films. Below are some of our top picks:
1
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk
Dir: Fatma Hassona
Documentary standouts include Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, a haunting tribute to Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona. Pieced together mostly by video call footage between Hassona and Iranian director Sepideh Farsi, the film was announced for Cannes release during Hassona’s lifetime. Tragically, she was murdered, alongside nine family members, by Israeli airforces in April 2025.
2
Videoheaven
Dir: Alex Ross Perry
A meticulous ode to the bygone era of renting film by Alex Ross Perry. Drawing from Perry’s time working as a clerk of Kim’s Video in New York, this seven-part essay film, narrated by Maya Hawke, explores the cultural legacy of video stores purely using archival footage from the stores as seen in film and TV.
3
It Was Just An Accident
Dir: Jafar Panahi
The Australian debut of the feature film revenge thriller that won this year’s coveted Palme d’Or. Jafar Panahi, Iranian filmmaker whose acute political films against the regime have led to filmmaking bans and spells of imprisonment in his home country, doesn’t hold back on his critique of totalitarianism here.
4
Resurrection
Dir: Bi Gan
A hazy sci-fi feature that delves into the ability to dream: presenting it as some kind of super power in a reality where humans have lost their ability to do so. It’s trippy, immersive, and laden with allegory about modern China. Sweepingly filmed with nods to silent film, German expressionism, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Wong Kar-wai.
5
Yurlu | Country
Dir: Yaara Bou Melhem
Aboriginal elder Maitland Parker lived his whole life in Pilbara, the outback in Western Australia, a site devastated by decades of reckless asbestos mining. Dying of an aggressive form of cancer that is linked to asbestos exposure, the documentary follows Maitland as he campaigns for justice, and demands authorities to clean up the toxic mess that destroyed the country so dear to him.