2025's Melbourne International Film Festival Is Opening with the Rose Byrne-Starring 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You'
The movie is making its Australian premiere at MIFF — and Byrne won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at this year's Berlin International Film Festival.
It's a question that film festivals face each and every year: how do you kick off? For the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2025, the answer comes courtesy of an award-winner with Australian ties that'll enjoy its Aussie premiere in the Victorian capital. The movie opening the fest on Thursday, August 7: If I Had Legs I'd Kick You starring Rose Byrne (Physical).
The dramedy initially debuted at Sundance to significant acclaim, then made its way to the Berlin International Film Festival — and saw Byrne take home that fest's Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance. Scoring the opening-night slot at MIFF is no small feat, either, with attendees set to watch its lead portraying Linda, a psychologist struggling with balancing her clients, an ill child and an abyss on her building's roof.
Nick Robertson
Fellow Aussie Danielle Macdonald (The Last Anniversary) co-stars, as does Conan O'Brien (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Christian Slater (Dexter: Original Sin) and A$AP Rocky (Highest 2 Lowest). Also among the cast: If I Had Legs I'd Kick You's writer/director Mary Bronstein (Yeast).
"I am beyond thrilled to be bringing If I Had Legs I'd Kick You to MIFF. That would have been enough, but I am further honoured and gobsmacked to have been selected to open the festival," said the filmmaker.
"My film is built around an unprecedented performance by one of the most-talented actors that has ever come out of Australia: Rose Byrne. It is all the more meaningful for me to be able to personally share Rose's soul-shattering work, along with the stunningly raw co-starring performance of fellow Australian Danielle MacDonald, with such celebration and reverence in their home country."
"This New Yorker has never been to the other side of the globe before and I can't think of a better way to first experience beautiful Melbourne than through such deep appreciation for not just my film, but cinema in general, as MIFF is known around the world for."
Nick Robertson
Added MIFF Artistic Director Al Cossar, "I'm so thrilled the electrifying If I Had Legs I'd Kick You opens this year's MIFF with some of the most intensely accomplished filmmaking you'll see this year. Urgent, funny, and audacious, we couldn't be prouder that Bronstein's singular vision will set the start to MIFF's 18-day immensity of cinema-going, as we welcome Melbourne audiences back once more to our 300-plus film adventure through the world's imagination."
Melbourne International Film Festival runs from Thursday, August 7–Sunday, August 24 in 2025, and began announcing this year's lineup back in June, ahead of the full program dropping on Thursday, July 10. Other highlights so far include Parasite composer Jung Jae-il coming to Australia to conduct the movie's score live in an Aussie exclusive, Jafar Panahi's Cannes Palme d'Or-winning It Was Just an Accident, almost-100-year-old masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc with a new score by Julia Holter performed live, an Australian time-loop comedy involving tequila, a Baker Boy- and Hugh Jackman (Deadpool & Wolverine)-narrated tribute to David Gulpilil, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind filmmaker Michel Gondry's latest and the world-premiere of natural disaster-focused virtual-reality documentary When the World Came Flooding In.
The 2025 Melbourne International Film Festival runs from Thursday, August 7–Sunday, August 24 at a variety of venues around Melbourne; from Friday, August 15–Sunday, August 17 and Friday, August 22–Sunday, August 24 in regional Victoria; and online nationwide from Friday, August 15–Sunday, August 31. For further details, including the full program from Thursday, July 10, visit the MIFF website.
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