Winter in Melbourne always fills me with mixed emotions. Coming from Queensland, I find the constant cold at this time of year almost impossible to get used to. As the cold wind whips in from the south-west turning my ears pink and causing me to question why on earth I don’t move back to Brisbane I am reminded that winter is not all bad, the fact that I am wearing about ten layers of clothes and still shivering means that it must be about time for my favourite event on the Melbourne cultural calendar, the city’s International Film Festival.

 

 

What better way to get out of the house and avoid the cold streets than by buying a ten ticket pass to this great event? This is my third film festival and already I have found myself, popcorn in hand, ensconced within the warm embrace of a packed film theatre watching the best the movie world has to offer. My first festival film of the season was Thirst by Korean director Park Chan-wook and it was well worth the thirty-minute queue that snaked down Bourke Street from the Greater Union on Russell. Buckets of blood, sex and comedy mixxed in together, it was a perfect Saturday night film and if the thought of a priest turning away from his vows to take up an ultra-violent quest of self destruction sounds like your thing then I definitely recommend it. On Sunday I went to see Tales from the Golden Age, which was written by Christian Mungiu, whose previous film 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days I had loved. It was great, a collection of short stories set in the last days of Soviet Romania. These simple stories, often humorous, gave a vivid picture of what it was like to live through this period and as is so often the case with the films shown at MIFF, allowed the audience to travel through time and space to get a taste of another place.

 

My only disappointment about MIFF this year is the fact that I won’t be able to get my usual fix of Chinese cinema. As someone who studies Chinese as a second language, the festival is usually a great way for me to go and catch up on the latest movies from my favourite Chinese directors and see the works of new artists emerging from this country. Films are a great way to learn more about the language and culture of a place and, as I am no longer living in China, I find Chinese movies one of the best ways to immerse myself in the language. Unfortunately, the Chinese directors who had submitted films to the festival this year have withdrawn them in protest of MIFF’s screening of the controversial documentary “10 conditions of love” about Rebiya Kadeer. Without getting to deep into the politics of the situation, I must say that the decision of the directors to withdraw their films disappoints me. But what made me really quite sad was the subsequent hacking of the festivals website by Chinese nationals who defaced the festivals site with nationalistic slogans and Chinese flags. Film Festivals should be a place where any number of different and contradictory voices should be able to be heard, much like an ideal democracy such festival’s worth may be measured in their ability to sustain and encourage debate. It is a shame that the directors chose to remove their films from screening because members of the cinema going public who are fans of Chinese film such as myself are now no longer able to see these films, and are also left with the impression that these filmmakers fail to appreciate the spirit which makes MIFF such a great event.