2012 Melbourne International Film Festival Program Unveiled

Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) Artistic Director Michelle Carey has tonight announced this year's festival program.

Read the latest Film Carew blog, which previews 40 of the films from the program!

One of the big announcements included revealing MIFF closing night film as Mental - it will be the Australian premiere of the film that reunites director PJ Hogan with his Muriel's Wedding star Toni Collette. Mental finds the pair back in Australian suburbia alongside Anthony LaPaglia.

Also revealed were MIFF's retrospective programs for 2012. Jean Epstein: Bonjour Cinema will include a screening of his adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe gothic novella The Fall Of The House Of Usher. Leos Carax: The Last Romantic is a collection of Carrack's unique style of film-making known as cinema du look - it includes a screening of Holy Motors his latest work that was the talk of Cannes and stars Eva Mendez with Kylie Minogue.

The Street Level Visions: Chinese Independent Docos program includes the Australian premiere of Beijing Besieged By Waste directed by Wang Jiuliang who is also a guest of the festival. Other guests of the festival include Fredrik Gerrtten (Big Boys Gone Bananas!), Benh Zeitlin with his award-winning film Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Simon Pummell with Shock Head Soul and Malik Benjelloul with Searching For Sugar Man.

Program highlights include: the Australian premiere of ParaNorman from the makers of Coraline; Rudy Sparks from husband and wife collaborators Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Falls (Little Miss Sunshine); the silent Tabu; Wes Anderson's MoonRise Kingdom; the winner of the Sydney Film Festival competition Alps; Safety Not Guaranteed with Aubrey Plaza, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Kristen Bell; Liberal Arts directed by Josh Radnor with Elizabeth Olsen; Brazilian film Neighboring Sounds; Colin and Cameron Cairne's 100 Bloody Acres; Mads Brugger's The Ambassador and Frederick Wiseman's Crazy Horse.

This year's music program includes Something From Nothing: The Art Of Rap (co-directed by Ice-T) and Charles Bradley: Soul Of America. Also MIFF will honour filmmaker and Beastie Boy, Adam Yauch with a screening of Beastie Boys concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!.

The festival will run Thursday 2 - Sunday 19 August.

Our resident film blogger Anthony Carew has previewed 40 films from the program here!