MIFF- Matthias & Maxime and The Australian Dream

It is time once again for one of my favorite winter events in the city- the Melbourne International Film Festival. This year's festival runs from 1-18 August, and I have even become a MIFF member this year to make my moving going experience even easier. I began my festival last night at Hoyts Melbourne Central for French-Canadian film director Xavier Dolan's latest film Matthias & Maxime. It focused on twenty-something childhood best friends Matthias (Gabriel D'Almeida Freitas) and Maxime (Dolan) and their circle of friends over a few months before Maxime moves away for two years to Melbourne (which was an amusing subplot for those of us in the audience). While up at a summer cabin the two agree to appear in a short student film by Matthias' sister in which they have to kiss, and this event triggers underlying dormant feelings that drive the plot for the rest of the film. The film was good and has some recurring familial themes from Dolan's previous films, but I think it didn't have the same cinematic beauty of some of his earlier works.

This morning Sally and Megan joined me at The Plenary in the Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre for the film that opened MIFF, the Adam Goodes documentary The Australian Dream. While the other current documentary out about Adam, The Final Quarter, pulled together media and archival footage from the last few years of Adam's AFL playing career when constant booing forced him from the game, this documentary involves Adam himself. It focuses on his life story, from his family life growing up to his AFL playing career, and sets his story within the broader context of racism in Australia and how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been treated since European settlement. The film has interviews with with a wide variety of people involved in Adam's life as well as journalist Stan Grant, who was a screenwriter for the film and did the fantastic speech in 2016 that really set the broader context of what Adam was dealing with to the Australian public. After the film there was a Q&A with the British director Daniel Gordon, and their goal is for this film to have an international release.