MIFF Announces Opening Night Film

Celebrating its 63rd anniversary this year, the Melbourne International Film Festival has this morning announced that the feature presentation opening this year's event will be Predestination, the newest movie from Australian filmmaking siblings the Spierig Brothers.

Known primarily for their indulgently wonderful vampire flick Daybreakers, as well as their contribution to zombie-film canon with Undead – which appeared at 2003's festival – Peter and Michael Spierig have, with Predestination, taken things to a temporal level, telling the story of a time-travelling agent (Ethan Hawke) sent on a final mission by his boss (Noah Taylor, Game Of Thrones) to chase down a terrorist who has consistently eluded him.

The story is based on Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 sci-fi short story All You Zombies, which, if you're not familiar, was responsible for popularising one of the mothers (or fathers, maybe) of all time-travel paradoxes.

Predestination was filmed in Victoria, which lends the film's premiere at MIFF an extra degree of serendipity – a fact not lost on festival Artistic Director Michelle Carey.

“We are completely captivated by this stylish mind-bender of a film and can't wait to present the Australian Premiere as our Opening Night film. Shot in Melbourne, with smart direction and thrilling performances, it will be a sure-fire conversation starter at the after-party,” she said in a statement.

MIFF's Opening Night movie will kick off 18 days of events for the festival, which this year includes more than 300 films from around the world across program sections such as the International Panorama, Documentaries, Accent on Asia, and Backbeat, as well as the youth-focused Next Gen program.

Selections from those programs are due to be announced on May 19, with a further taste of the festival coming on May 27, when more details – including the Closing Night film – will be announced.

The full program will be revealed July 8, with tickets going on sale Friday, July 11, for the July 31-August 17 festival.

Opening night goes down on Tuesday, July 31 at Hamer Hall. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday. For more information, check the MIFF website.