MIFF 2025: Australian Shorts
Melbourne International Film Festival 2025 is ongoing and I went to watch my fourth session (of 12!) , Australian Shorts.
This post my short review of the six short films in the session!
For context: I am a photographer/youtuber that wants to up my cinematography and storytelling, that’s why I’m watching 12 sessions at the film festival PLUS reviewing them here on my blog!
These were all made by local Australian artists; and they were all there! The session opened with them on stage and giving a short spiel about their films. It was so cool to see them in person. Afterwards, my wife even approached one of the directors and just had small chit-chat. Congratulations to everyone for a the amazing movies, really inspiring.
This and “Mango Seed” were the synopsis that made me want to watch these shorts. Well, I really like watching these shorts in a film festival setup, so I was already interested. All that said, I really glad that I did! This was hilarious and the theme hits home. it talks about internalised racism and just sense of belonging in Australia when your a minority from a different ethnic group than “white”.
The way the narrative is told is great. The way characters pop-in the background when being talked about is so funny. For example, they were talking about one of their sisters, and the sister just pop up in the background as if she was there. I find it hard to explain, but if you’ll get it if you watch it haha.
In this sessions, I wonder about the sequencing of these films as well. “Howl” almost felt like a glimpse into life as an Australian young adult that I didn’t really experience. It was quite a contrast compared to “I’m the Most Racist Person I know”.
I noticed that lots of the shots are very closed up, seemingly filmed on a long lens (as in large focal length, i.e. 50-75mm?). And that was most of the shots up to the end where it was widen a bit, but still not too wide. Perhaps it was a story telling tool to show that these young adults don’t yet have a wide perspective of life and they are a bit tunnel visioned. Or maybe they just chose to shoot it that way haha, not sure if I’m overanalysing it. Regardless of the intent, the tight shots made did make me feel uneasy and want to back up a bit, and as the story unfolded when it got to the uncomfortable parts narratively, it made it even worse. As mentioned, the only “break” that the audience get is towards the end of the film. Almost like a breather before the conclusion.
All in all, I’m not so fond of the narrative, but the cinematography was really interesting.
My wife and I noticed some of the places in here! It’s fun to see familiar places in a film. “Stranger, Brother” is a story of two brothers that has the same dad but different moms. The dynamic between them is actually quite nice to see. The older brother, Adam, seemed very caring towards the younger one, Mose. It has this very tight sense of “family is family, regardless of what happened or will happen” — which fits the “stranger” in the title.
I quite like the shots in the beginning where they Adam and his friends were high on… something. The fast pans with long exposures had cool trippy effects. The rest of the movie was well done too, but hard for me to remember exact scenes that are particularly cool. I like the movie overall!
This was a weird one haha. The location was BEAUTIFUL! It’s in a village in the Himalayas, Nepal. The producer/director/writer shared that they got the entire village to act in the opening scene, I found that really cool. The scenery and shots were amazing, I think the cinematography brought out the best of the location.
Now the story. I honestly couldn’t follow it that much… lol. Maybe I’m not sophisticated enough to understand it. However, since this is my biased subjective review, I gotta say that I don’t like it because I couldn’t follow it. The story seems intricate and poetic in a way that perhaps need a second watch, which I’m actually keen on, to see the beautiful shots again.
“Mango Seed” was my favourite of the set. Spoiler alert: I cried. It follow the journey of a Chinese migrant family in Australia. The dad is actually played by the real-life dad of the producer! So cool. His acting was so good. I was kinda wondering if he’s just like in the movie and so it was easy for him to act that way haha, but obviously I don’t know.
In the opening scene, the daughter got a job in film making in Sydney — I think they were in Adelaide. And the story unveiled how her parents, mostly the dad, react to this news. There are lots of scenes that hit home for me. My parents are not stern as this dad, but I can certainly relate to the more “invisible” way that Asian parents support or show love to their kids. Of course they are visible ways too, but the invisible ones really made me feel something when seeing it as a 3rd person. It made me tear up.
The cinematography reminded of the movie “Perfect Days” in some ways. Just everyday moments that adds up into something meaningful. The scene when the dad was cutting up the mango and eating the mango seed was great, and of course ties in the title nicely.
This had an unusual concept that I feel like only works for a short movie — so in a way it utilised the time in the best way. Some short movies that I saw felt like shorter versions of a longer movie. As in a longer movie made more concise. On the other hand, “The Eviction” was MADE for this. There were two shooting locations, both in a university dorm. One is a top down view of the stairs (that I assume lead to the dorm rooms), the other one is in the auditorium (or gym?) of the dorm. They did only one angle at the stairs and many different angles in the auditorium for the “debate”.
The story is structure is linear and compact. The whole film is a group of students in a committee deciding whether to evict a student from the dorm. The way they bring up their points reminded of how my group of friends argue… haha. There are some ridiculous arguments, some that are agreeable. I think the point of the film was kind of to evoke a feeling towards certain arguments. I can imagine people in the cinema can be grouped based on which person they agree with the most. However, it’s also hard to say because we don’t know them and we only know the to-be-evicted student based on the information presented. Plus, while we certainly get a sense of character from everyone, the characters are not well developed at all — on purpose, or rather a subsequent of how the story is told.
I feel like the story and the way it was presented was the main charm of the film. The cinematography is not as important — although the top down stair shots are cool as. All in all, I kinda want to show this to my friend group and see who they agree with… maybe it’d turn to a real-life version of the movie. Huh, could it be the goal of the writer all along…?