2025 HSBC Spanish Film Festival and MIFF 2025: First Glance

For this Out Takes, we welcomed the return of two of our favourite film festivals that will be entertaining us in cinemas over the winter months here in Melbourne. We started with looking at one of the many fantastic films on offer at this year’s Spanish Film Festival which will be bringing the fiesta to cities around Australia this June and July with a curated selection of thirty films from Spain and Latin America. ‘Baby’ is from Brazilian writer and director Marcel Caetano and is described as a vibrant queer drama that is a colourful, empathetic ode to found family, and a superb homage to the city of São Paulo and the people who struggle to survive in it. The film looks at the life of 18-year-old Wellington a.ka. Baby, who after being released from a juvenile detention centre finds himself alone and adrift, without any contact from his parents and lacking the resources to rebuild his life. He encounters Ronaldo, a mature and handsome sex worker, who takes him under his wing and teaches him new ways of surviving. We spoke with Marcelo Caetano who shares more about the making of this beautiful film and how it is bringing representation for queer Brazilian life to the world.

We then turned our attention to the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) which returns from August 7 to 24 to bring some of the most talked about films arriving hot from Cannes, Berlin, Sundance and across the globe. We welcomed back MIFF Artistic Director Al Cossar to look at the first glance announcement for this year’s festival which is celebrating its 73rd year with a theme that challenges us to ‘Look Closer’ which we dis aa we discussed some of the many fantastic films and events that will be on offer.

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