Filmed at iconic Byron Bay, against the canvas of Australia’s famous east coast surf beaches and rain forests, Bosch & Rockit is a raw and unapologetic exploration of unconscious parenting and the deeper themes of love, forgiveness and relationships. Set in the late 1990s, before the era of smartphones and social media, Bosch & Rockit is a powerful story told through the eyes of a young teenage boy. As Rockit grapples to understand why his Mum’s not coming home, he embarks on a magical holiday with his father, Bosch, only to discover they’re actually running from the law. While on the run, they struggle through unbelievable circumstances only armed with hope, courage, and determination. Bosch gives his all trying to protect his son. Rockit struggles to come to terms with the hand he has been dealt. Unable to attend school because of the ‘heat’ it would draw from the police and with no mother around to nurture him, Rockit turns to surfing and the life that is associated with it as a means of escape. Bosch can only run for so long and eventually his reality catches up with him. BOSCH & ROCKIT is a film that exposes the devastation that unconscious parenting and addiction can have on a family, it is a story that ultimately gives us hope that no matter what our circumstances are, we will find a way through. Told through the eyes of a young boy, BOSCH & ROCKIT is an incredible journey from boyhood to manhood.

Join the filmmakers from CHEF ANTONIO'S RECIPES FOR REVOLUTION in person at Pivot Cinema! Speaker - Erin Kearns is a young woman living with Down syndrome with her parents in country Victoria. Erin is an actor at Theatre of Speed, the performing arts program led by Geelong based, Back to Back Theatre. She currently works part time in hospitality, at the Central Cafe and the Federation University Cafe in Horsham, Victoria. Previously Erin played her part in the fight against Covid, working at a local vaccination clinic, helping people to check-in. She is a keen traveller and has travelled to many counties including Italy. Erin's father Brian will support her and participate in the Q & A. Brian, a father of three, is an employee of the Victorian State Government and also likes to travel. Moderator & Speaker – Trevor Graham is the writer/director & co-producer of Chef Antonio's Recipes for Revolution. He's been a filmmaker for over 35 years, producing works that inspire social inclusion and change. He fell in love with the people in this film and travelled to and from Italy over a 3 year period to direct it. Chef Antonio de Benedetto is on a quest, to change the world with his delicious Italian food. His apprentices are Mirko Piras, a young man born with Down syndrome, who dreams of becoming a great chef ‘just like Antonio’ and Jessica Berta, an ambitious waitress who’s also set her sights on a career among the pots and pans. Their tiny kitchen is the beating heart of a evolutionary restaurant and hotel like no other. Both are staffed by young men and women living with Down syndrome who come from across Italy to train and work in hospitality, so they can take their place at the table of life. Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution, is their closely observed story, told in first person by Antonio, Mirko and Jessica. It’s a journey through their lives and loves, dreams and dramas. The final instalment in writer/director Trevor Graham’s culinary trilogy is both a celebration of its subjects’ spirit and a testament to the titular figure’s formidable vision. Like Make Hummus Not War and Monsieur Mayonnaise before it, the film features food as a vehicle for larger issues; here, Graham uses humanistic slice-of-life storytelling to tackle intellectual disability, individual agency and industrial reform. Topped off with stunning footage of the changing seasons, scrumptious shots of food and a delightful cast of characters, this lovely gem of a film offers generous servings of joy and hope

A young Finnish woman escapes an enigmatic love affair in Moscow by boarding a train to the arctic port of Murmansk. Forced to share the long ride and a tiny sleeping car with a Russian miner, the unexpected encounter leads the occupants of Compartment no. 6 to face the truth about their own yearning for human connection.

From Oscar-nominated visionary filmmaker Baz Luhrmann comes Warner Bros. Pictures’ drama “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler and Oscar winner Tom Hanks. The film explores the life and music of Elvis Presley (Butler), seen through the prism of his complicated relationship with his enigmatic manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Hanks). The story delves into the complex dynamic between Presley and Parker spanning over 20 years, from Presley’s rise to fame to his unprecedented stardom, against the backdrop of the evolving cultural landscape and loss of innocence in America. Central to that journey is one of the most significant and influential people in Elvis’s life, Priscilla Presley (Olivia DeJonge). Starring alongside Hanks and Butler, award-winning theatre actress Helen Thomson (“Top of the Lake: China Girl,” “Rake”) plays Elvis’s mother, Gladys, Richard Roxburgh (“Moulin Rouge!” “Breath,” “Hacksaw Ridge”) portrays Elvis’s father, Vernon, and DeJonge (“The Visit,” “Stray Dolls”) plays Priscilla. Luke Bracey (“Hacksaw Ridge,” “Point Break”) plays Jerry Schilling, Natasha Bassett (“Hail, Caesar!”) plays Dixie Locke, David Wenham (“The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy, “Lion,” “300”) plays Hank Snow, Kelvin Harrison Jr. (“The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “The High Note”) plays B.B. King, Xavier Samuel (“Adore,” “Love & Friendship,” “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse”) plays Scotty Moore, and Kodi Smit-McPhee (“The Power of the Dog”) plays Jimmie Rodgers Snow. Also in the cast, Dacre Montgomery (“Stranger Things,” “The Broken Heart Gallery”) plays TV director Steve Binder, alongside Australian actors Leon Ford (“Gallipoli,” “The Pacific”) as Tom Diskin, Kate Mulvany (“The Great Gatsby,” “Hunters”) as Marion Keisker, Gareth Davies (“Peter Rabbit,” “Hunters”) as Bones Howe, Charles Grounds (“Crazy Rich Asians,” “Camp”) as Billy Smith, Josh McConville (“Fantasy Island”) as Sam Phillips, and Adam Dunn (“Home and Away”) as Bill Black. To play additional iconic musical artists in the film, Luhrmann cast singer/songwriter Yola as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, model Alton Mason as Little Richard, Austin, Texas native Gary Clark Jr. as Arthur Crudup, and artist Shonka Dukureh as Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton. Oscar nominee Luhrmann (“The Great Gatsby,” “Moulin Rouge!”) directed from a screenplay by Baz Luhrmann & Sam Bromell and Baz Luhrmann & Craig Pearce and Jeremy Doner, story by Baz Luhrmann and Jeremy Doner. The film’s producers are Luhrmann, Oscar winner Catherine Martin (“The Great Gatsby,” “Moulin Rouge!”), Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick and Schuyler Weiss. Courtenay Valenti and Kevin McCormick executive produced. The director’s behind-the-scenes creative team includes director of photography Mandy Walker (“Mulan,” “Australia”), Oscar-winning production designer and costume designer Catherine Martin (“The Great Gatsby,” “Moulin Rouge!”), production designer Karen Murphy (“A Star Is Born”), editors Matt Villa (“The Great Gatsby,” “Australia”) and Jonathan Redmond (“The Great Gatsby”), Oscar-nominated visual effects supervisor Thomas Wood (“Mad Max: Fury Road”), music supervisor Anton Monsted (“Australia,” “Moulin Rouge!”) and composer Elliott Wheeler (“The Get Down”).

Following her Cesar award-winning performance in 'Antoinette in the Cévennes' and the breakout success of 'Call My Agent!', the marvellous Laure Calamy demonstrates the phenomenal range of her talents in writer/director Eric Gravel’s gripping new drama FULL TIME, as a single woman pushed to her limits when the delicate balance between her home and work life is upended. Mother of two Julie (Calamy) is making ends meet, getting by as the head chambermaid of a five-star hotel in Paris, with only sporadic alimony payments from her ex-husband. Each meticulously-planned day starts before sunrise, preparing the kids for school and undertaking a long commute to work, where she unflappably completes her duties in time to return to them. But when a national railway strike breaks out - paralysing the entire Île-de-France public transport system - Julie’s routine is thrown into chaos, increasingly pushing her into a frenetic race against time that threatens everything she’s worked so hard for. FULL TIME has all the qualities of a pulse-pounding thriller, while offering a superb commentary on the daily hustle that defines modern life. Calamy fully deserves the multiple prizes - including Best Actress at Venice 2021- awarded for her work here; she and the film’s gasp-inducing final scenes are unforgettable.

Sam (17) has been on a self-destructive spiral that could lead to his death. He returns home from boarding school to find his wheelchair-bound English grandmother, Ruth has moved in. Ruth is an ex-war photographer with a lust for life and a love of the bottle. Sam soon finds himself profoundly confronted by her alcoholic wit and chutzpah. Their first meeting is awkward; their second violent. Things get worse when Sam finds himself stranded alone with her and her nurse Sarah for the school holidays. Both strong-willed characters, a battle of supremacy ensues, enabling Sam to embrace life again and for Ruth to face her mortality.

Culinary indulgence is more aural than oral in Peter Strickland’s latest foray into fanciful fetish, which gives new meaning to ‘playing with your food’. On a month-long residency at a prestigious art institute, an unnamed trio of ‘sonic caterers’ – artists who create music with food and related items – play with flavour, flangers and fornication under the watchful eye of their benefactor, the imperious Jan Stevens, whose meddling exacerbates the group’s backstage bickering. Outside the walls, a rival collective named the Mangrove Snacks conducts acts of gastronomic terrorism in protest at their rejection by Stevens, who doesn’t like what they do with terrapins. Documenting the proceedings is a flatulent flâneur, whose intestinal issues are not being helped by the institute’s in-house doctor. With this sensual and sickening delight, Strickland returns to an audible/edible world he first portrayed in Berberian Sound Studio (MIFF 2012), though it’s one he has a far longer history with, having founded The Sonic Catering Band in 1996. Yes, they made music with food; yes, they reunited to create much of Flux Gourmet’s soundscape. Reuniting, also, with Gwendoline Christie (In Fabric, MIFF 2019; Game of Thrones) and long-time collaborator Fatma Mohamed (The Duke of Burgundy, MIFF 2015; Katalin Varga, MIFF 2009), the director has crafted an absurdly comic art-world satire with sprinklings of This Is Spinal Tap, the Greek ‘Weird Wave’ and Peter Greenaway, plus star Asa Butterfield (Sex Education) thrown into the mix – all meticulously cooked to filmic perfection. “This is Strickland’s grand act of prestidigitation; he coaxes out something like poignancy from the peculiar, just as he conjures the visceral and unknowable from ordinary groceries … Chocolate mousse will never be the same.” – The Playlist

A 10-year-old must keep her grief-stricken immigrant family together in this moving Australian–Slovenian co-production. In Melbourne’s outer-suburbs, reticent Moja, her well-meaning Slovenian father Miloš and her volatile older sister Vesna all struggle to cope with the impacts of a significant death. But Vesna is in denial about the demands of late-stage pregnancy and Miloš barely speaks a word of English, so Moja is forced to assume the role of stabilising presence and cultural mediator – with little chance to mourn the loss of their mother. Selected for the Berlinale’s Generation Kplus program, Moja Vesna is the MIFF Premiere Fund–supported feature debut from director Sara Kern. Magnificent newcomer Loti Kovačič illuminates the screen with a rendition of strength through quiet action that pairs deftly with Mackenzie Mazur’s study in destructive denial and Slovenian star Gregor Baković as a fallible dad, while Claudia Karvan (Love My Way) plays a kindly supporting role. This stirring film dramatises not just the life-sustaining faith that things will, in time, turn out alright, but the devotion sought from loved ones while waiting for the tide to turn. “Some filmmakers have the drive to tell poignant stories that deal with the most difficult topics, and the talent to match … Kern is one of them.” – Cineuropa

This award-winning, jaw-dropping documentary follows Vladimir Putin’s political rival as he investigates a state-sponsored poisoning: his own. In late 2020, on a flight from Siberia to Moscow, Alexei Navalny – anti-corruption campaigner, leader of the Russia of the Future party, social media star and popular critic of the Putin government – became viciously ill. Spirited out of the country to life-saving treatment in Berlin, Navalny learned he had been dosed with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok, a poison favoured by the Kremlin. While recuperating in Germany, Navalny teamed up with Christo Grozev, lead Russia investigator at Bellingcat, to solve the whodunnit of his own attempted murder … with astonishing results. Winner of an Audience Award and the Festival Favorite Award at this year’s Sundance (where its very existence was kept secret until just before its own world premiere), Navalny is at once a taut conspiracy thriller and an account of the machinations and missteps that led to a failed domestic assassination. But Canadian documentarian Daniel Roher’s film goes even further: it’s also a psychological study of a canny, charismatic and uniquely media-savvy politician, and a blazingly urgent glimpse at the risks dissidents face when opposing the Putin regime. “One of the most jaw-dropping things you’ll ever witness … This terrifying documentary enters the realms of the far-fetched spy thriller – and yet it’s all true. Five stars.” – The Guardian

Accelerator Lab alumnus Goran Stolevski delivers a heart-meltingly tender, quintessentially Melbourne queer coming-of-age tale that will make you swoon from beginning to end. It’s the summer of 1999 and two teens fresh out of high school – reserved, Serbian-born Nikola (Elias Anton, Barracuda) and fiery Ebony (Hattie Hook) – are partners for a dance competition. On the big day, Nikola gets a distressed call from Ebony, asking to be rescued from the other side of town, so he enlists her brother, the charming Adam (Thom Green, Dance Academy; Downriver, MIFF Premiere Fund 2015), to take him there. On the drive, amid traffic and amicable swagger, the two young men discover a mutual spark … but Adam is leaving the country in 24 hours. Supported by the MIFF Premiere Fund, this heady story of youth and love is the second feature from Australian director Stolevski (Would You Look at Her, MIFF 2018; You Deserve Everything, MIFF 2016) – named among Variety’s global ‘10 Directors to Watch for 2022’ list, and whose long-form debut You Won’t Be Alone also screens at this year’s MIFF following its celebrated Sundance premiere. Tactile, funny and heartfelt, Of an Age captures the hinterland of suburbia, the strains of immigrant families, and the crossroads of desire and big dreams in teenage years, as well as lip-biting moments of attraction and anticipation. Like in Weekend before it, time in Of an Age is both constraint and catalyst, with Stolevski depicting the coming-together of two twin souls and the bracing realisation that everything has its moment.

This groundbreaking film from world-renowned theatre company Back to Back wonders whether an AI-led near-future society will further disenfranchise the disability community. Based on their acclaimed stage production The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes, this compelling drama from the Geelong-based ensemble Back to Back – recent recipients of the International Ibsen Award, known as the Nobel Prize of theatre – follows a trio of intellectually disabled activists who hold a town meeting to weigh up the impacts of artificial intelligence. Fearing the worst, they devise plans to safeguard their community and the world, only for their discussion to descend into chaos. Eventually, they discover that their greatest threat is right there with them in the room. Winner of the Visions section’s Audience Award at this year’s SXSW, Shadow was directed by Back to Back’s celebrated artistic director Bruce Gladwin and brought to life by a cast and crew almost entirely made up of creatives with disability. An innovative, confronting drama, the film ponders inequality, prejudice, and individual and collective responsibility in the face of crisis, and is an exciting exemplar of authentic community-led storytelling. “A darkly humorous conversation about fighting artificial intelligence … One of the significant movies of the year.” – Digital Mafia Talkies

The Breakfast Club meets the outback in this uplifting coming-of-age road movie by Nyul Nyul / Yawuru director Jub Clerc (The Turning, MIFF Premiere Fund 2013; The Heights). With problems on the home front, 15-year-old Murra is on the verge of lashing out. That is, until her policeman uncle thwarts her self-destructive behaviour with a lifeline: a “photo-safari for at-risk kids”. Murra isn’t entirely convinced, but she soon joins cantankerous Kylie, uptight Sean, happy-go-lucky Elvis, and camp counsellors Fernando and Michelle on a transformative bus trip to the Pilbara. On the trail, the teens learn about fun, friendship and first crushes, as well as the forces of ‘reality’ that puncture the bubble of youth. Starring Aboriginal luminaries Tasma Walton (Mystery Road, Cleverman) and Mark Coles Smith (Pawno), Chilean-Cuban-Australian actor Carlos Sanson Jr (Bump), and a magnetic Shantae Barnes-Cowan (Total Control, Firebite) in the lead, this film is an effervescent story of growth, acceptance and the journey towards finding oneself. With postcard-perfect shots of remote Western Australia and a road-trip-worthy soundtrack of all-Indigenous artists, Sweet As is sure to take you along for its thrillingly cinematic, life-affirming ride.

Returning to MIFF after 2021’s COVID cancellation, this Sundance Audience Award winner is a revelatory, immersive adaptation of Naoki Higashida’s memoir of a neurodiverse life. Higashida was just 13 years old when The Reason I Jump was published. A groundbreaking international bestseller, the book – whose English version was co-translated by author David Mitchell – offers unprecedented insights into the active and creative mind of someone living with non-verbal autism. In adapting it for the screen, director Jerry Rothwell (How to Change the World, MIFF 2015) has created something equally robust and innovative. Recalling Notes on Blindness (MIFF 2016) and Unrest VR (MIFF 2017) in its sensory-led audiovisual approximation of a world that neurotypical audiences often struggle to understand, Rothwell’s film artfully weaves Higashida’s words with the stories of five other neurodiverse young people from around the world. Through exquisite cinematography and sound design, it depicts the sometimes disorienting and overwhelming but equally rich and joyful experiences of each individual’s interior life. The result, which took home Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Audience Award in 2020, is a remarkably empathetic work likely to change minds, warm hearts and inspire conversation about the autism spectrum. “As emotionally piercing as it is beautiful to behold … this compassionate, creative documentary will open ears and eyes in equal measure.” – Variety

When a filmmaker son sets out to make a documentary about his filmmaker father, long-buried feelings and dormant memories bubble to the surface. Richard Crawley’s passion for cinema was so ardent that he recorded his young family’s every moment and milestone on video. To pay the bills, he channelled this love for the lens into music photography, snapping such acts as the Rolling Stones, Tina Turner and the Jackson Five. But then tragedy struck and snuffed out Richard’s creative and parental fire. Now, his adult son James attempts to understand Richard’s inner turmoil after discovering 30 hours of confessional footage, in the process making sense of the 70-year-old’s newfound zest for life. Supported by the MIFF Premiere Fund, this raw and revealing feature documentary combines archival footage and photographs, lively narration and talking heads, and a buoyant rock ’n’ roll score to recount a relationship marred by grief and failed dreams. But this is also a film about filmmaking – the cinema as preservation of self, whether in coping, catharsis or committing experiences to memory. Volcano Man is a poignant portrait of a father in denial and a son kept at a distance, for whom an eruption of mutual honesty offers long-belated closure.

When a billionaire entrepreneur impulsively decides to create an iconic movie, he demands the best. Renowned filmmaker Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz) is recruited to mastermind this ambitious endeavour. Completing the all-star team are two actors with massive talent but even bigger egos: Hollywood heartthrob Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) and radical theatre actor Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez). Both are legends, but not exactly best friends. Through a series of increasingly eccentric trials set by Lola, Félix and Iván must confront not only each other, but also their own legacies. Who will be left when the cameras finally start rolling?

From writer-director Michel Franco (New Order) comes a simmering, suspenseful sharp jolt: Alice and Neil Bennett (Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tim Roth) are the core of a wealthy British family on vacation in Acapulco with younger members Colin and Alexa (Samuel Bottomley and Albertine Kotting McMillan) until a distant emergency cuts their trip short. When one relative disrupts the family’s tight-knit order, surprising tensions rise to the fore.