MIFF first look line-up
‘Hard as Puck’, ‘Jebediah: Are We OK?’, ‘Mad Rush’ included in MIFF first look line-up
https://if.com.au/hard-as-puck-jebediah-are-we-ok-mad-rush-included-in-miff-first-look-line-up/
·June 11, 2026
'Hard as Puck'
The sights, sounds, and sport of the west are among the early highlights in this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), which has announced a first-look program of 25 titles.
Among the six MIFF Premiere Fund titles announced today, Isaac Elliott’s debut documentary Hard as Puck embeds itself with the Garden Island Pirates, Western Australia’s only para ice hockey team, as they wrangle sponsorships, navigate the bureaucratic politics, and strap into sledges under the stoically deadpan watch of founder Dan Perrett.
Also premiering through the fund is Arlo Dean Cook’s Jebediah: Are We OK?, tracing the Perth alt-rock band’s thirty-year arc from Triple J darlings to the darker terrain of sustained success, and featuring firsthand perspectives from local music icons Tim Rogers, Phil Jamieson, and Janet English.
Elsewhere, Sean O’Reilly’s Guided by Horses, which documents Aboriginal researcher Professor Juli Coffin’s equine healing program for First Nations teenagers in the Kimberley, also screens in the program.
A still from Jebediah: Are We OK?
The trials of youth are also explored in Maddelin McKenna’s debut Mad Rush, which transforms Melbourne’s CBD into a landscape of financial panic and existential dread after a phone call about fraudulent bank activity sends a rootless Gen Z spiralling through the city; and Harvey Zielinski’s Sweet Milk Lake, a coming-of-age dramedy in which a softly spoken trans man is mistaken for his alpha, cis twin brother by his estranged and dying dad, and takes the opportunity to be “one of the boys.”
They will premiere as part of the fund alongside Trevor Graham’s Digby & Camille, a portrait of two Sydneysiders living with Down syndrome and dreaming of marriage and children; and Dan Jackson’s Death of a Shaman, a documentary that plunges audiences into the Ecuadorian Amazon, where Indigenous shaman Rafael Santi is running out of time to pass sacred knowledge onto his teenage grandson and to protect his community from the mining and oil corporations closing in with government backing.
Other local highlights include the world premiere of SBS drama series The Airport Chaplain, created by Elise McCredie and Jude Troy and starring Hugo Weaving; Josef Gatti’s decade-in-the-making Phenomena, which transforms Petri dish chemistry into psychedelic visual spectacle, built entirely without AI; and Tamra Davis’ The Best Summer, a co-production between the US, Australia, Thailand and Indonesia that captures performances at Summersault, an upstart Australian festival with ambitions to outshine the Big Day Out.
The international contingent features Sandra Hüller’s Silver Bear-winning performance in Markus Schleinzer’s Rose and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Minotaur — the dissident director’s first feature in a decade — alongside Clio Barnard and Enda Walsh’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, winner of the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s samurai thriller The Samurai and the Prisoner.
‘Phenomena’
Of the events announced, John Cameron Mitchell will attend to present a live commentary screening of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in restored 4K at The Astor, while Memento returns in a new edition of Hear My Eyes with a live score from a yet-to-be-announced local artist.
MIFF artistic director Al Cossar said the selections offered a glimpse of a festival that would feature a world on screen, alongside the very best in new Australian storytelling.
“These incredible films are just the beginning of a program that will showcase more than 300 titles. We’re proud to unveil them today – and even more excited about everything still to announce at the 74th Melbourne International Film Festival when the program goes live on July 9.”
The full program, including the Bright Horizons Competition lineup, will be revealed on 9 July. The 74th Melbourne International Film Festival will run from August 6–23 across Naarm, regional Victoria, with MIFF Online screening nationally until August 30.
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