The Melbourne International Film Festival is the oldest film festival in Australia.
Film festivals are fun events to attend for any person who has a huge taste for new movies.
Some of the film festivals cover a specific category to attract certain crowds that are into a genre of the movies being screened while others cover international films allowing more people to attend.
There are plenty of film festivals being held annually around the world including some film festivals in Australia. Out of the film festivals held in Australia, the Melbourne International Film Festival gains the most attention.
Melbourne International Film Festival 2009 Expectations
The 58th annual Melbourne International Film Festival will be held from August 7 till September 8. Like previous film festivals, movies coming from all parts of the world will be accepted regardless of the genre.
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History of the Melbourne International Film Festival
The Melbourne International Film Festival started way back in 1951. During those times, not many film festivals were being held around the world. So this makes it one of the oldest ongoing film festivals in the world. Year after year, the Melbourne International Film Festival gained more interest.
The latest Melbourne International Film Festival showed over 400 films representing over 50 different countries. It included a fine showcase of local Australian cinema. It also hit a huge milestone in visitor numbers, which were higher than 180,000. The festival makes a huge contribution to Melbourne’s economy.
Highlights of the Melbourne International Film Festival
Although the Melbourne International Film Festival didn’t begin as a competitive film festival, some competition among short films was introduced in 1962. Short films battle it out for the top award which is the Grand Prix for Best Short Film which is presented by the City of Melbourne.
There are other awards as well for the short film competition including, Best Short Screenplay which is presented by the Australian Writer’s Guild and many other awards like Best Animated Short Film, Best Fiction Short Film, Best Documentary Short Film, Best Experimental Short Film, Best Student Short Film and Human Rights Award.
There are also three different awards for feature films which are the Most Popular Feature Film Award, Most Popular Documentary Award, and the highly sought FIPRESCI (Federation Internationale de la Presse Cinematographique) Award. Five of the awards are only awarded to Australian movies presented by various companies.
Because of the variety, it is a great idea to get yourself a ticket.
Be the first to see all these screenings of all these new movies.
It is a great opportunity to see the work of new, talented and well established film makers from all over the world.
