Aussie docos on show

Aussie docos on show

The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival outlines an ambitious slate of feature and short documentaries direct from Hot Docs, SXSW, Doc NYC, Doc Edge, Traverse City Film Festival, Sundance, Cannes, Doxa, Tribecca and more.

The focal points of this factual filmmaking festival can equally be divided between people on their own personal odysseys, society, community, family and those on the fringes.

The festival will open unconventionally on July 9 at Howler Art Space with an opening day “binge watch” of documentaries kicking off at 11am. The opening short is The Satellite by Ann Johnson which tells the improbable true story of Australia first spacecraft.

More than 80 documentaries will be screened over eight days at four venues: Howler Art Space, Long Play, Cinema Nova and The Laneway Learning Centre.

The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival is guaranteed to provide a rich array and diverse mix of documentaries direct from the festival circuit. Curated sections include Australian, short documentary, music, foodie, art, street art, environmental, LGBTI, Aboriginal, investigative journalism documentaries and world cinema.

On Saturday, July 15 from 9am The Laneway Learning Centre will host a master class on documentary filmmaking, indigenous filmmaking and a seminar on distribution from leading Australian distributors geared toward helping established and emerging filmmakers.

The next day from 9am, The Laneway Learning Centre will a host a new initiative from the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival called Charity Docs where all money generated from ticket sales of that session will be equally donated to the Alzheimer’s Foundation and the RSPCA.

Selected highlights of this year’s fest include the Melbourne premiers of high profile documentaries The Cinema Travellers, God Knows Where I Am, Five Days on Lesvos and Miss Kiets Children.

Short documentary highlights include For Flint direct from Tribecca and Road to Webequie from TIFF.

More than 40 Australian films will make the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival one of Australia’s biggest showcases of local talent.

Confirmed guests this year include Costa Botes (Candy Man, Forgotten Silver, LOTR), John Pritchard (One Heart, One Spirit) and Jack Thompson (The Man from Snowy River, Breaker Morant).

For more information please go to the website www.mdff.org.au

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