Multicultural Film Festival

Join us for a free screening of the Official Selection from the 2022 Multicultural Film on our Big Screen.

The MFF is annual short film festival that explores diversity and multiculturalism through powerful, uplifting and thought-provoking films.

The films cover a range of genres from comedy to documentary, music video to drama, and more.

The film festival is presented by the Victorian Multicultural Commission in partnership with Swinburne University of Technology and is sponsored by Commonwealth Bank, Jobs Victoria, Victoria’s Department of Transport, Segmento and SBS.

If you’re interested in submitted a film for consideration for 2023, check the website for details https://www.multiculturalcommission.vic.gov.au/multicultural-film-festival

Films:

5 km and 8 pm

Classification: PG – Content is mild in impact. Year: 2022. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Drama. Cast: Laura Jane Turner, Jing Yang. Director: Le Luo.

Synopsis: Two women explore queer romance during Melbourne’s COVID-19 lockdown restrictions of staying within 5km and keeping to an 8pm curfew.

AKOSIA – GO

Classification: PG – Content is mild in impact. Year: 2021. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Music. Cast: Akosia Sabet, Dale Crawford. Director: Dale Crawford.

Synopsis: GO is a music video for the artist/actress AKOSIA (Thor: Love and Thunder). It’s an allegory about a woman struggling for freedom. Initially trapped in the embrace of a golden skeleton, in the womb of a foreign planet, she finds the inner resource to escape and find power in autonomy.

Am I a Man Yet?

Classification: M for coarse language and sexual references. Year: 2018. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Coomedy. Cast: Rhett Hughes, David Koutsouridis, Xavier Michelides. Director: Chris Kennett.

Synopsis: When David turns 21 and still doesn’t feel like a man, he employs the help of an oddball psychologist, who sets him up on a date with his younger sister.

Baba

Classification: PG – Content is mild in impact. Year: 2021. Language/s: Arabic. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Doco. Cast: Mohamad Abbas Dirani, Ziad Dirani. Director: Firass Dirani.

Synopsis: Baba’, which means ‘Dad’ in Arabic, tells the heart warming story of Mohamad Abbas Dirani, a Lebanese-Australian immigrant, and his ambitions as a young shepherd. Mohammad was the eldest of 10 children, and was ordered to be the family’s main bread winner at the age of 7. He never imagined adversity knocking at his doorstep so early.

Best Wishes

Classification: G. Year: 2021. Language/s: Mandarin. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Drama. Cast: Nan Chen, Yuchen Wang, Frank Xu. Director: Zhang Xiaoan.

Synopsis: Two young queer Chinese men who have feelings for each other connect over the phone just as one of them is preparing to be married to a woman.

Beyond The Pitch

Classification: G. Year: 2022. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Sport. Cast: Various. Director: Maggie Garcia Pena.

Synopsis: Beyond the pitch is the story of a group of women from diverse cultures, backgrounds and experiences united by the love for soccer. As part of Melbourne Social Soccer, a not-for-profit organisation, these women meet once a week to play soccer. However, what starts as a match ends up being much more – a way to meet new friends, connect with new cultures and tear down stereotypes.

Biting the Bullet

Year: 2019. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Sport. Cast: Shek Sinha, Brendan Pardy, Junqing ‘Tamie’ Tan. Director: Lizbeth Calingasan.

Synopsis: An observational/expository documentary about Junqing (Tamie) Tan, a young, introverted international student forced to try and find a better life in Australia due to a troubled past, stumbles upon the sport of boxing that gives her hope to one day becoming a sponsored athlete and Australian citizen.

Celebrating Cultural Diversity at Currawa Primary School

Classification: G. Year: 2022. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Doco. Cast: Various. Director: Jarod Bacon.

Synopsis: Students at Currawa Primary School have been exploring and celebrating cultural diversity.

Ek Din (One Day)

Classification: PG – Content is mild in impact. Year: 2020. Language/s: Hindi, English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Drama. Cast: Sahil Saluja, Rachel Kamath. Director: Dion Wheeler.

Synopsis: Two Migrants, from two different worlds trying to find themselves in a place away from home.

Her, Grace

Classification: PG – Content is mild in impact. Year: 2014. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Bio. Cast: Gracie Lolicato, Katrina Lolicato, Santo Lolicato. Director: Gracie Lolicato, Katrina Lolicato.

Synopsis: Snapshots never show the full picture. Some say life is predestined. And perhaps for some it is. Some people are born to be remembered, while others are born knowing that they will be limited by health or opportunity or time. Some of us are born into history and memory. Others earn their place in the hearts and minds of those around them

Hold Up

Classification: M for Violence. Year: 2021. Language/s: English, Vietnamese. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Comedy, Thriller. Cast: Ming Yang Lim, Keana Pillay, Carina Hoang, Shern Nguyen, Sam Dudley. Director: Cassandra Nguyen.

Synopsis: A shy uni student gets caught up in a robbery at an Asian grocery store as he attempts to ask out his crush.

Kariwa

Classification: G. Year: 2021. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Doco. Cast: Narrators: Kiara Rodriguez-Hextall, Zac Zac Duczynski, Aunty Sharon Edgar-Jones. Director: Kiara Rodriguez-Hextall.

Synopsis: A young indigenous woman must face her shame. Her self-pride, being challenged by the views of others, she must come to terms with her own shame and relearn to love and be proud of her culture.

Klesha

Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Drama. Cast: Pubudu Jayakodi, Athula Samarasekara. Director: Rukmal Nirosh Fernando.

Synopsis: This is a drama film about a young monk who struggles between freedom and desires. When Sumana Thero arrives in Australia for a short visit, he experiences a new kind of freedom he had not known back in his home country of Sri Lanka. Sumana meets a young man from the temple, who invites him to a party. He flees the temple at night to attend the party, where he witnesses drug use and human behaviour he has not seen before. Finding himself in a bad situation, he realises where he belongs.

Mediterranean madness

Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Poetry. Cast: Koraly Dimitriadis. Director: Artemis Evlogimenou.

Synopsis: Does love have its own identity? Dive into the cultural differences between Anglo-Australians and those that from the Mediterranean diaspora in this poem by Cypriot-Australian Koraly Dimitriadis.

Sunset Stories

Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Documentary. Cast: Jiaying Li, Robert Gourlay. Director: Todd Manion.

Synopsis: Jo, a Chinese exchanges student finds a sense of community and friendship in her new city through a group of skaters

The Fade

Classification: M for Adult themes and/or dangerous stunts. Year: 2022. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Doco. Cast: Abdul and Jenny from The Perfect Barbershop, Collingwood. Director: Thomas Elliott.

Synopsis: A day in the life of an African Barbershop.

The Ninth Tower

Classification: M for coarse language. Year: 2021. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Drama. Cast: Karina Sorelli, Sunny S. Walia, Oz Malik. Director: Kauthar Abdulalim.

Synopsis: When the Victorian Government locks down his public-housing building, a teenager responsible for his mother’s welfare is pushed to the brink.

Title: To Colombia and Beyond. Classification: G. Year: 2022. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Doco. Cast: Isabella Diaz Guerrero, Sebastian Diaz Guerrero. Director: Obayda Kannouj.

Synopsis: A pair of siblings give a vlog tour of their homeland of Colombia and talk about their unique culture in a multicultural Australia.

Unsaid

Classification: G. Year: 2021. Language/s: English. Genre: Short Film. Sub-genre: Drama, Family. Cast: Atticus Emerson, Jasmina Mihaljevic. Director: Alex Nesic.

Synopsis: It is the 1990s; Melbourne, Australia. Six-year-old Oscar struggles to find connection with his multicultural family when relatives from Serbia move into his crowded suburban home. Surrounded by strange people and languages, Oscar is unable to express himself, especially to his bossy cousin, Mila. In trying to keep her away, he unwittingly tears his family apart.