Echuca’s Paramount Theatre is set to host two weekends of the Melbourne International Film Festival in August through the MIFF regional program.
August 16 to 18 and August 23 to 25 will see 10 films roll into town, from animated family features to heavier documentaries and uplifting comedy.
For MIFF artistic director Al Cossar, the idea of the regional program is to bring some of the titles from MIFF to broader audiences, heading to places like Shepparton, Bendigo, Castlemaine and Geelong.
“The last few years, what we’ve done is effectively form these weekend expansions right through our festival season,” he said.
“We go to a series of country Victorian centres every year.
“We bring some highlights from the festival program, both Australian filmmaking and international highlights.
“We also bring out guest filmmakers and artists to regional audiences, and basically give everyone the experience of MIFF.”
MIFF also offers an at-home screening option, aiming to make its films as accessible as possible.
“There’s a platform that we use, and effectively, it’s a home screening platform,” Mr Cossar said.
“It has a whole series of festival features and shorts that anyone, not just in regional Victoria, can watch from the comfort of their home.”
Mr Cossar believes it is important to reach regional audiences, not only to provide better access but to inspire artists who don’t live in the city.
“It’s an extraordinary thing to go out to the regions
“A lot of our filmmakers over the last few years have come from regional communities.
“Last year’s opening night film Shayda is by Noora Niasari who’s based in Castlemaine, the filming for The Rooster last year was regional as well (Hepburn).
“There’s always this through-line of really incredible filmmakers originating from regional Victoria represented in these spaces.
“We love getting out of the city and connecting some pretty incredible, potentially unseen and highly anticipated movies through regional Victorian audiences.
“It’s a real joy.”
There are 10 films gracing the Paramount next month as part of MIFF.
The opening night film, launching MIFF in Melbourne on August 8 and the regional program on Friday, August 16, at 7pm is Memoir of a Snail by director Adam Elliot.
“This is a Melburnian filmmaker, he’s an Oscar-winning filmmaker,” Mr Cossar said.
“It’s claymation, with an all-time Australian voice cast of Sarah Snook, Jacqui Weaver, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Magda Szubanski and Eric Bana.
“It’s dark and delightful, and has an incredible art for the nuances of Australian suburbia.
“It’s just an extraordinary kind of film.”
The program hopes to impress all audiences, with children’s films on show like the bringing to life of Australian picture book Magic Beach, showing at the Paramount on Saturday, August 24 at 2pm
“I highlight that as a family film, great for preschoolers and above,” Mr Cossar said.
“It’s a really ambitious adaptation of Alison Lester’s children’s book, one that people I’m sure have grown up with.
“Here he works with 10 different animation teams ... every team kind of expands the world of the work.
“It creates this kind of shape-shifting, beautiful sort of world of play for kids, but I think it’s a film everyone would love.”
Another film Mr Cossar recommends is Queens of Concrete, a documentary that follows three young girls from regional Victoria over seven years on their Olympic skateboarding quest.
“It follows their coming-of-age in amongst their ambitions to be professional skateboarders in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics,” he said.
It will round-out the program as the closing film on Sunday, August 25, at 7pm.
Finally, the film Thelma, showing on Saturday, August 17, at 2pm, is another Mr Cossar hopes will delight viewers.
“It’s a really nice one for a 60-plus audience, but really for anyone,” he said.
“It basically asks the question, ‘what if you made a Mission: Impossible movie, but instead of Tom Cruise it was a 93-year-old woman?’.
“It’s a beautiful, very funny film about effectively a grandma who gets conned online and her revenge.”
The full list of films in order of screening is: Memoir of a Snail, Friday, August 16, at 7pm; Thelma, Saturday, August 17, at 2pm; Audrey, Saturday, August 17, at 7pm; MIFF - Australian Shorts Package, Sunday, August 18 at 2pm; Left Write Hook, Sunday, August 18, at 7pm; Janet Planet, Friday, August 23, at 7pm; Magic Beach, Saturday, August 24, at 2pm; Copa 71, Saturday, August 24, at 7pm; Flathead, Sunday, August 25 at 2pm; and Queens of Concrete, Sunday August 25 at 7pm.
For more information about the festival and the films, head to the Echuca Paramount website.