Overview
When projectors start rolling at the Brisbane International Film Festival for 2024, the annual showcase of cinema will kick off with a journey behind the scenes of a TV premiere that changed comedy history. When the movie-worshipping event comes to an end for another year, it'll do so with a portrait of a tennis star. In-between, get ready for everything from Selena Gomez's latest big-screen role to a music biopic made with Lego — and pioneering Australian animation, First Nations' horror, Cate Blanchett navigating a global crisis and more. Yes, the full BIFF lineup is here.
The River City's major film fest has been unveiling its titles for a few weeks, so Saturday Night launching the fest and Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story closing it aren't new news. Also already known: that the program includes Anora, the latest feature from Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket filmmaker Sean Baker, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival; the Amy Adams (Dear Evan Hansen)-starring Nightbitch; Riley Keough (Daisy Jones & the Six) and Jesse Eisenberg (Fleishman Is in Trouble) playing a sasquatch family in Sasquatch Sunset; Aussie horror The Red, which is quite the kangaroo story; and the female Iranian judo athlete-focused Tatami.
Even just days before the complete lineup dropped, the festival revealed that it's showing Venice Golden Lion-winner The Room Next Door, aka the newest movie from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar (Parallel Mothers, Pain and Glory) and his English-language feature debut, with Tilda Swinton (Fantasmas), Julianne Moore (May December) and John Turturro (Mr & Mrs Smith) starring. And, it advised that it's screening Venice's Silver Lion-winner The Brutalist, which picked up the Italian fest's Best Director prize and hails from actor-turned-filmmaker Brady Corbet (The Childhood of a Leader, Vox Lux), as well.
Now comes everything else that'll get eight Brisbane venues in the BIFF mood, and audiences with them, across Thursday, October 24–Sunday, November 3. The places to head to: Palace Barracks, Dendy Coorparoo, Reading Newmarket, Five Star Cinemas New Farm, Angelika Film Centre, Dendy Powerhouse and Dendy Portside, as well as taking the festival to the city's western suburbs at Reading Jindalee.
Gomez (Only Murders in the Building) joins the BIFF lineup via Emilia Pérez, the musical crime comedy from Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) that also stars Karla Sofia Gascón (Harina) and Zoe Saldaña (Special Ops: Lioness), and won all its ensemble cast Cannes' Best Actress prize this year. Plastic bricks are on the bill courtesy of Piece by Piece, which gives Pharrell Williams the on-screen bio treatment, but not in the usual way. Blanchett (Borderlands) features in Rumours, which boasts the The Green Fog's inimitable trio Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson behind the lens. And as also mentioned above, BIFF has the world premiere of homegrown animation The Lost Tiger, the first such Aussie flick written and directed by an Indigenous woman, on the bill as well — and also Sundance-debuting horror The Moogai.
Other newly unveiled highlights include Malcolm Washington's feature directorial debut The Piano Lesson, which has his brother John David Washington (The Creator), as well as Samuel L Jackson (Fight Night) and Danielle Deadwyler (Till), among the cast; dreamy Buffy-inspired sensation I Saw the TV Glow from We're All Going to the World's Fair's Jane Schoenbrun; and Hunter Schafer (Euphoria)- and Dan Stevens (Abigail)-starring thriller Cuckoo. There's also Sundance Audience Award-winner Sujo, about the son of a cartel gunman; Audrey, as led by Jackie van Beek (Nude Tuesday) as a mother who steals the identity of her teenage daughter, who is in a coma; and restaurant-set dramedy La Cocina featuring Rooney Mara (Women Talking).
BIFF attendees can look forward to Inside, too, with the prison drama starring Guy Pearce (The Clearing), Cosmo Jarvis (Shōgun) and Toby Wallace (The Bikeriders) — and directed by Charles Williams, who won the 2018 short film Palme d'Or for All These Creatures. The Seed of the Sacred Fig is the latest film from Mohammad Rasoulf (There Is No Evil), with the movie's place on this year's Cannes lineup seeing him forced to flee Iran after being sentenced to flogging and imprisonment. And All We Imagine as Light was the first Indian film to play in Cannes' competition in three decades.
Elsewhere, In Vitro is an Ashley Zukerman (Succession)-led Australian sci-fi thriller about a couple doing biotech experiments, the Ilana Glazer (The Afterparty)-led mom-com Babes is helmed by Pamela Adlon from Better Things, and Carnage for Christmas brings Yuletide mayhem courtesy of a tale about a true-crime podcaster in the sights of a psychotic killer. And for a piece of inspiration, the Osher Günsberg-narrated 150 follows Erchana Murray-Bartlett's attempt to run 150 marathons over 150 days.
In total, 52 features grace BIFF's 2024 roster, meaning there's plenty more joining all of the aforementioned flicks — and plenty of excuses for Brisbane movie lovers to spend 11 days doing nothing but watching festival films in cinemas.
Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
Elise Lockwood
The 2o24 Brisbane International Film Festival runs between Thursday, October 24–Sunday, November 3 at Palace Barracks, Dendy Coorparoo, Dendy Powerhouse, Reading Newmarket, Five Star Cinemas New Farm and Angelika Film Centre. For further information, or to buy tickets, head to the festival website.