As part of our collaboration with @emergingwriters.bsky.social and @melbcinematheque.bsky.social, Liên Ta reflects on themes of religious devotion and sacrifice in several films screened during the Cinémathèque's season ‘Cine de Oro: Treasures of Mexican Cinema’s Golden Age.' tinyurl.com/2hycfntr

"Happiness, community, and fantasy are no less present in spaces like this." Sydney Leoli Reyes draws on the sights and sounds of four Filipino masterworks, which screened in October and November as part of the @melbcinematheque.bsky.social Lino Brocka season. tinyurl.com/4j6ru4k2

"The picket line [...] becomes not just a place of protest but of community and shared knowledge." Maudie Osborne on SALT OF THE EARTH, a blacklisted 1954 film that dramatised the real events of a New Mexico miners' strike with women at its centre. tinyurl.com/yc8x9t3k

“I still want to remind people that this is a collective ritual.” Oscar Bloomfield talks to Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul about being present, hearing music everywhere, and revisiting his first short, BULLET, ahead of a rare Sydney screening next week. tinyurl.com/3yp5njay

“There is an archive that is lost, but there’s an archive that replaces it, which is made in the present.” Indigo Bailey talks to Palestinian filmmaker Azza El-Hassan, whose work KINGS & EXTRAS screens at our Bridge of Solidarity fundraiser event Oct 11. tinyurl.com/y3pmu75w

"Kerr’s stop-and-go career momentum and the film’s aspirations as a somewhat conventional sports biopic create a friction, placing excess weight on the shoulders of its movie star attraction." Read Kevin Bui on Benny Safdie’s THE SMASHING MACHINE. tinyurl.com/327pm43s

On Oct 11, we're co-hosting a mutual aid benefit screening of Azza El-Hassan's KINGS AND EXTRAS: DIGGING FOR A PALESTINIAN IMAGE & Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville's HERE AND ELSEWHERE (ICI ET AILLEURS) in partnership with writer Dylan Rowen and Static Vision. tinyurl.com/4tmeshzp

Our first piece in collaboration with the Emerging Writers' Festival x @melbcinematheque.bsky.social is a work of short fiction by Laetitia Um—a response to the Cinémathèque's recent Seijun Suzuki season that explores the troubled psyche of a side character in BRANDED TO KILL. tinyurl.com/mu2ajak9

Rough Cut is proud to be partnering with the Emerging Writers Festival and @melbcinematheque.bsky.social to publish three responses to Cinémathèque seasons by emerging writers during EWF 2025 and beyond. We'll kick off with the fest on Sep 11—watch this space! 💌🎥📝 tinyurl.com/ysmzzmmd

“This film is an artefact, and that’s how I wanted to make it; that’s how I want it to feel.” Michelle Huang speaks to PASA FAHO director Kalu Oji about collaboration, intergenerational love and learning, and refusing assimilation. tinyurl.com/4xpjxjbh

"I saw this very narrow version of Hollywood, and I didn’t like it." Emily Browning talks to @connordalton.bsky.social about the joys and anxieties of her most formative roles, from her breakthrough in GHOST SHIP to her latest turn in the homegrown rom-com ONE MORE SHOT. tinyurl.com/334699jy

This piece from Indigo Bailey @roughcutfilm.bsky.social is essential reading, especially ahead of MIFF kicking off. roughcutfilm.com/2025/08/08/c...

"The current escalation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is a critical juncture which marks blatant cultural as well as humanitarian crises—including a crisis for the moving image." Indigo Bailey on rejecting regimes of silence and complicity in the Australian film industry. tinyurl.com/3jud2hwh

On the site today, Philippa Hawker interviews the prolific screenwriter, director, and Cahiers du Cinéma critic Pascal Bonitzer about his new art world-set feature THE STOLEN PAINTING. Now in Australian cinemas courtesy of Palace Films 🖼️ tinyurl.com/2tuczmc6

"Seyrig's performances [...] teeter on the threshold between person and place." Jamie Jungyoon Tak writes on LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD & MURIEL, OR THE TIME OF RETURN, which screened together as part of the recent Delphine Seyrig season at the Melbourne Cinémathèque. tinyurl.com/nnu7uw8y

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Indigo Bailey interviews Palestinian-American writer, director and actor Cherien Dabis about her miraculously executed drama ALL THAT'S LEFT OF YOU, which she was forced to recreate in exile after five months of preparation and construction in Palestine. tinyurl.com/bden6zb4

"A crisis can be very fecund." Andréas Giannopoulos speaks to filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari about her latest feature, HARVEST, which follows a Middle Ages farming community as it descends into turmoil. Screens this weekend at Sydney Film Festival. tinyurl.com/mswspzrz

In the latest entry of his Screen Play column, Austin Lancaster wades into a world of vulgarity—the "nasty, cheap, and gratuitous"—with indie game NIGHT AT THE GATES OF HELL, which riffs on the gauche greats of Italian horror, Lucio Fulci & Bruno Mattei. tinyurl.com/4nh7t6zu

Screens in Naarm this Saturday night alongside the BBBC Coming to the Edge symposium!

The Melbourne International Film Festival lights up screens from 7—24 August. This year, we’re inviting you to Look Closer at stories from near and far. Your first look at #MIFF2025 lands tomorrow morning at 11am. Subscribe to Widescreen to stay in the loop: miff.com.au/subscribe

"Histories of making and handling with both care and violence manifest in scratches, time codes, rips, grain, and skipping frames." Alex Williams rounds out our BUFF coverage with a reflection on Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari's A FIDAI FILM. tinyurl.com/ydfz5rjj

SCREENING THIS WEEKEND AT BUFF 🔥 Charles Carrall speaks with Leon O'Regan, the restorer of Charis and George Schwarz’s pioneering sex films. They discuss lifting them from obscurity, Australian censorship, and the couple’s hardcore artistry. tinyurl.com/mr3779sh

"Cinema is no conveyer belt, no this and then that. It’s only now and now and now." Indigo Bailey surveys a trilogy of microbudget miracles from Adelaide collective Moviejuice, screening at the inaugural Brunswick Underground Film Festival this Saturday. tinyurl.com/yxzr645b

Kevin Bui presents a star study by way of the latest MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE instalment, tracing Cruise's persona from "enigmatic movie star" to "intensely devoted action hero [...] willing to put his own life on the line" for our entertainment. tinyurl.com/mw3syjsd

As part of our Summer Sacraments program in March, Indigo Bailey spoke to writer-director Laura Citarella about her 2011 feature debut, OSTENDE. Now live on the site, their conversation looks at the film's many echoes across Citarella's rich oeuvre. tinyurl.com/yn2pbh8f

My only chance in life to open a piece with a Farsi verse by Ghalib ❤️ Delighted to share this wonderful conversation with Matthew Rankin & Ila Firouzabadi about one of my absolute favourite films of the past year. UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE is in Australian cinemas now! roughcutfilm.com/2025/05/23/a...

"There’s no point in making culture if you don’t believe in community building." Virat Nehru (@nehrukigalati.bsky.social) goes long with Matthew Rankin and Ila Firouzabadi about their absurd and moving film UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, collaboration, fluidity, and much more. tinyurl.com/4nkx7c2x

Rough Cut is proud to co-present an upcoming screening of CUDDLY TOYS, Kansas Bowling's exposé about the lives of teenage girls, which screens in Naarm/Melbourne as part of the Brunswick Underground Film Festival on June 1. Read on for some perks❗️⬇️ buff.film/film/cuddly-...

"In DAHOMEY, Diop demonstrates her parallel interest in depicting the world as it is and imagining experiences beyond the human realm." Read Mia Palmer-Verevis on Mati Diop's second feature, the magical realist mode, and decolonising arts institutions. tinyurl.com/4khvue4v

"It's about having perspective about yourself and your stupid problems." Dylan Rowen talks to director Haley Elizabeth Anderson about her debut feature TENDABERRY, an emotional odyssey crafted from archival vlogs, notes app meditations, and the rhythms of New York. tinyurl.com/2fadnd4v

Just under a week left to apply!

“Beneath the narrative of bodily possessions lies a tale of complex intergenerational hang-ups and historic resentments.” Nicole Cadelina reviews Parish Malfitano’s SALT ALONG THE TONGUE, a genre-bending, supernatural portrayal of migrant womanhood currently playing FFFA. tinyurl.com/4uvak26d

Charles Carrall spins a fable of romance, death, and houseboats full of untrained animals. Or more precisely, about Elizabeth Taylor's lifelong spiritual affinity with the animal kingdom, from LASSIE to chipmunks to her prized Pekingese. A must read: tinyurl.com/ypysykvb

New in our 'Beyond The Frame' column, a conversation with Cinema Reborn committee members and programmers James Vaughan and Angelica Waite. They talk putting together a festival of restorations, scouting films in Bologna, and the ethics anchoring the committee's programming choices.

This April and May, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Eiko Ishibashi's audiovisual collaboration GIFT arrives in Australia for a run of live performances. Andréas Giannopoulos talks to Ishibashi and producer Satoshi Takata about the unique improvisational project. tinyurl.com/589sfk9j

Today on the site, Finn Dall (@finnwritesdall.com) tackles Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza's WARFARE—an "immature, if harrowing, retread over the traumas of war." tinyurl.com/ytbdcv7b

We present this conversation between WHEN CLOUDS HIDE THE SHADOW director José Luis Torres Leiva & lead actor María Alché in anticipation of the film's screening at the BBBC Coming to the Edge symposium on June 7, courtesy of Cristóbal Escobar & FIDOCS. tinyurl.com/mr3ze36v

"OH, CANADA is a whiskey-neat piece of work, a real strong and silent type." So begins Mia Quartermaine's review of Paul Schrader's latest work, a dizzying drama in which a dying documentarian tries, perhaps in vain, to tell the truth about his life. tinyurl.com/wa4bxaxt

Indigo Bailey interviews the directors of Australian futuristic thriller IN VITRO, Will Howarth and Tom McKeith, in cinemas from today. They discuss the inspirations and collaborations that shaped the film's moody atmosphere, melding genres, and more. tinyurl.com/mr3wxuk9

Congratulations to Virat Nehru (@nehrukigalati.bsky.social) for winning the award for Best Review of a Non-Australian Film at the @auscritic.bsky.social Awards last night, for his review of Payal Kapadia’s ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT, published w/ Rough Cut last August. Very well deserved!

I'll be writing a new column for Rough Cut, looking at resonances between video games and film. The first article looks at Oblivion's buggy NPCs, non-actor performances, System Shock, Façade, Hitman, Out for Delivery and other related topics. tinyurl.com/45t5uzht

Introducing 'Screen Play,' a new column examining the thresholds of the cinematic and the virtual. In this first entry, Austin Lancaster explores the world of video game performance, looking at uncanny 'failures' & the desire for meaningful idiosyncrasy. tinyurl.com/45t5uzht

Today on the site, Ivana Brehas talks to Alexei Toliopoulos and Zachary Ruane about their new show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival—a retelling of Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton’s "rock and roll" fight against the banning of KEN PARK. tinyurl.com/49ksew4z

FYI: We've recently updated our pitch guide for 2025! We are particularly interested in receiving pitches for our 'At the Cinémathèque' column in collaboration with the Melbourne Cinémathèque 🎥 roughcutfilm.com/pitch/

A RIVER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SKY, the feature from filmmaking collective Dogmilk, is having an encore screening *tomorrow night* at ACMI! You can catch up on our interview with filmmakers Victor Konda, Chris C. F. and Wahyu Al Mardhani on the site. roughcutfilm.com/2025/01/23/l...

NEW: Claude Kempen explores trans optimism, ecstatic otherness, and German cultural anxieties in CITY OF LOST SOULS, Rosa von Praunheim's 1983 musical comedy starring Angie Stardust and Jayne County. tinyurl.com/2ma8t4vt

"I only work with character actors because only character actors can do my stuff." Andréas Giannopoulos interviews Mike Leigh about the British filmmaker's latest, HARD TRUTHS, making movies under restrictions, his fears for future filmmakers, and more. tinyurl.com/37etc43c

Following his Cannes glory, filmmaker Charles Williams teamed up with Guy Pearce to make #Inside, a prison drama that centred vulnerability over violence. Williams and I had a comprehensive interview about it in my first piece for @roughcutfilm.bsky.social! LINK: roughcutfilm.com/2025/02/27/p...

Today we share a conversation between Connor Dalton and director Charles Williams on his new film INSIDE. They talk about the director's back-door dealings to land a star, working with former prisoners, and the age of incarceration. tinyurl.com/vtmarmkn