LA GRADIVA Wins MIFF's $140,000 Bright Horizons Award
Dario Russo won the Blackmagic Design Best Australian Director Award for THE FOX, judged by a jury led by Sophie Hyde.
The winners of the 2026 MIFF Awards were announced on Saturday 22 August at Rydges Melbourne, celebrating the best of this year's festival program across a prize pool of more than $300,000 – from bold new voices in world cinema, to trailblazing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander screen creatives, to the local directing talent shaping the future of Australian film.
One of the richest prizes in global cinema, the $140,000 Bright Horizons Award, supported by VicScreen, was awarded to La Gradiva, directed by Marine Atlan.
The Blackmagic Design Best Australian Director Award, presented by Blackmagic Design, was named earlier in the evening with Dario Russo taking home a $50,000 cash prize and a fully kitted URSA Cine 12K camera (valued at $27,500) for The Fox.
MIFF Artistic Director, Al Cossar said: 'Every year, the MIFF Awards are truly transformative for their recipients, and we are thrilled to recognise the extraordinary artistry on display in this year's winners.
'We congratulate La Gradiva – a film that so strikingly layers the ambitions and uncertainties of near-adulthood – as this year's recipient of the monumental Bright Horizons Award; as well as recognising Dario Russo as this year's Blackmagic Design Best Australian Director Award for the bold, singular comedic confidence of The Fox, an absolute hit at this year's MIFF.
'Our congratulations to all other category winners, and all other nominees for this year's awards, with our appreciation for their wonderful work across the festival.'
VicScreen CEO, Caroline Pitcher said: 'The Victorian Government is proud to support this iconic festival, which brings world-class cinema, passionate audiences and incredible energy to Victoria every winter. Our support for MIFF's 2026 Bright Horizons Award, one of the world's most significant film prizes, shines a global spotlight on both the winner and the festival, and reflects our commitment to Victoria's screen industry at every level. From nurturing local creative talent to investing in world-class infrastructure and internationally recognised events like MIFF, we are ensuring Victoria remains a leading destination for screen production and storytelling.'
Tasked with judging this year's Bright Horizons Award and the Blackmagic Design Best Australian Director Award was a formidable international jury, led by Jury President and award-winning Australian director Sophie Hyde, alongside independent filmmaking pioneer Joe Swanberg (The Sun Never Sets, MIFF 2026), Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning filmmaker Desiree Akhavan (The Miseducation of Cameron Post), acclaimed filmmaker Noora Niasari, whose debut feature Shayda opened MIFF in 2023, actor Courtney Eaton (Mad Max: Fury Road, Yellowjackets), and leading Singaporean producer Tan Si En, co-producer of Cannes Competition title Nagi Notes, which also screened at MIFF. The jury were all in the room at Rydges Melbourne on the evening to name their winners firsthand.
In awarding La Gradiva, the jury shared the following joint statement: 'After much deliberation we have chosen to give the Bright Horizons Award to a work we found deeply moving, from a filmmaker whose assured voice was immediately evident. We were impressed by the cinematic craft, which drew us close to the characters and left us transported. With a gently unfolding plot, a shifting point of view between characters that illuminated their various privileges, and exquisite performances from an ensemble cast of young actors and Antonia Buresi as their teacher.'
On the Blackmagic Design Best Australian Director Award winner, they said: 'For the weirdness, the inventive storytelling and wrangling a talking fox and magpie inside this very Australian modern folktale, the jury awards the Blackmagic Design, Best Australian Directors award to Dario Russo for The Fox.'
A number of the nominated creatives from across the MIFF Awards suite were in the room on Saturday evening alongside other esteemed guests of the festival, including Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson (Wicker), Eric Bauza (Coyote vs. ACME), Sophy Romvari (Blue Heron), Beth de Araújo (Josephine), Alice Maio Mackay (Our Effed Up World) and more.
Now in its fifth year, Bright Horizons has cemented itself as one of MIFF's most closely watched programs, introducing Melbourne audiences to the emerging filmmakers set to define the next era of world cinema. This year's award follows in the footsteps of 2025 winner A Poet, Colombian director Simón Mesa Soto's Cannes-winning tragicomedy about a washed-up poet who finds unexpected purpose mentoring a gifted teenager.
This year's full Bright Horizons Competition slate once again showcased a bold array of new, Australian-premiering works from filmmaking talents on the rise.
Bright Horizons Competition Slate
Big Girls Don't Cry – dir. Paloma Schneideman
Blue Heron – dir. Sophy Romvari
Elephants in the Fog – dir. Abinash Bikram Shah
The Friend's House Is Here – dir. Hossein Keshavarz, Maryam Ataei
Goodbye, Cruel World – dir. Félix de Givry
Josephine – dir. Beth de Araújo
La Gradiva – dir. Marine Atlan
Sweet Milk Lake – dir. Harvey Zielinski
Wicker – dir. Alex Huston Fischer, Eleanor Wilson
Yesterday the Eye Didn't Sleep – dir. Rakan Mayasi
Blackmagic Design Best Australian Director Nominees
Hyun Lee – French Girls
Maddelin McKenna – Mad Rush
Dario Russo – The Fox
Harvey Zielinski – Sweet Milk Lake
The Uncle Jack Charles Award, supported by the MIFF Lumiere Patrons, recognises an outstanding Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander screen creative featured in this year's festival program. The 2026 jury comprised acclaimed Nyikina actor, writer, producer and MIFF Ambassador Mark Coles Smith, Wiradjuri-Gomeroi scholar and public policy strategist Dr Todd Fernando, and Wiradjuri curator and RISING festival Senior Curator of Music, Hayley Percy.
The $20,000 cash prize was awarded to director Talia Liddle for Protest on the Dance Floor, which screened as part of this year's inaugural Sovereign Shorts program.
Uncle Jack Charles Award Nominees
Tammy Lee Rock (Pakana) – Queens to the Front
Talia Liddle – Protest on the Dancefloor
Charles Perrurle Perkins – The Native Police
Kieran Satour, Tyson Perkins – Facing the Numbers
Keinan William McGillivray Pethybridge – Man Wearing a Helmet
In selecting their winner, the Uncle Jack Charles Award jury said: 'Talia Liddle is a striking new voice in Australian filmmaking. In Protest on the Dancefloor, she demonstrates a clear point of view, confidence in her visual and narrative language, and an instinct for filmmaking that cannot simply be taught. There is a clarity to the world she creates and a sense that we are seeing the beginning of a distinctive body of work.
'We believe Talia has the potential to make work that carries our stories further: to tell stories that need to be told, to bring other mob into the work of telling them, and to take First Nations storytelling onto screens and platforms around the world.'
Presented by Collarts, this year's MIFF Schools Youth Jury Award was judged by a jury of three young filmmakers from the 2026 Top Screen cohort: Jake Symes, Zoe Bryant and Andrew Nguyen.
Fernanda Tovar's Sad Girlz was named the 2026 winner, receiving a $10,000 cash prize. A special mention was also awarded to Phenomena, directed by Josef Gatti.
Sam Jacob, Collarts CEO, said: 'Congratulations to Fernanda Tovar on the well-deserved recognition for her film Sad Girlz. A huge thank you to our Youth Jury for helping select this year's winner. Collarts is incredibly proud to partner with Melbourne International Film Festival and support the next generation of emerging filmmakers supporting fresh perspectives and bold new voices in cinema.'
Voted for by MIFF-goers throughout the festival, the Intrepid Audience Award went to Hard as Puck, directed by Isaac Elliott, with one lucky voter to win two spots on an Intrepid trip of their choosing.
Alexa Theofanou, Intrepid Head of Marketing, said: 'Congratulations to this year's Intrepid Audience Award winner, Hard as Puck, and to all the filmmakers who captivated audiences throughout the festival. At Intrepid, we believe films, like travel, can shift our perspective and bring us closer to people and communities we might not otherwise encounter. Hard as Puck does just that – taking us into the hilarious, heartfelt and inspiring world of the Garden Island Pirates. It's easy to see why audiences connected so deeply with this story. Congratulations to the film team.'
Presented earlier in the festival at the 65th MIFF Shorts Awards and Talent of Tomorrow Party, presented by Armani Beauty, this year's $56,000 short film prize pool honoured the very best in short-form filmmaking, with winners in key categories now eligible for submission to the 98th Academy Awards and for entry into the 2026 BAFTA Film Awards. New Zealand filmmakers Nick Mayow and Prisca Bouchet took out the City of Melbourne Grand Prix for Best Short Film for Lion's Rock, while the inaugural Armani Beauty Talent of Tomorrow Award – a new $10,000 prize recognising an outstanding emerging filmmaker from this year's MIFF Accelerator Lab – was awarded to Andrew Dang and Jak Scanlon for Last Chance to Evacuate Earth.
For documentary lovers, Sunday offers one last chance to catch some of the festival's standout nonfiction titles. American Doctor, Poh Si Teng's unflinching portrait of three US physicians volunteering in Gaza hospitals, screens alongside Summer 2000: The X-Cetra Story, Ayden Mayeri's joyous, deeply personal documentary about the accidental cult album she made with her childhood best friends. Sofia Coppola makes her nonfiction debut with Marc By Sofia, an intimate portrait of her longtime friend, designer Marc Jacobs, while Ross McElwee's devastating, intimate Remake returns to close out his decades-spanning body of work. And for only the most committed film-goers, Sunday brings the third and final instalment of Mark Cousins' The Story of Documentary Film.
World cinema also remains centre stage, with a last chance to catch two of this year's Bright Horizons Competition standouts: The Friend's House Is Here, Hossein Keshavarz and Maryam Ataei's tender drama, and Rakan Mayasi's Yesterday the Eye Didn't Sleep. Elsewhere, Arie and Chuko Esiri's Clarissa, a Lagos-set reimagining of Mrs Dalloway starring Sophie Okonedo, David Oyelowo and Ayo Edebiri; İlker Çatak's Golden Bear-winning Yellow Letters, a portrait of artistic persecution; Ira Sachs's Cannes-competing The Man I Love, starring Rami Malek as a theatre artist facing mortality in 1980s New York; and Flies, the Berlinale Ecumenical Jury Prize-winning drama about three strangers whose lives unexpectedly intertwine, also screen.
In a fitting conclusion to the festival's Kim Novak: Hollywood Heretic strand, MIFF's final Sunday in-cinema will see Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 psychological thriller Vertigo presented in 70mm on the Astor's screen.
MIFF Online offers an opportunity to catch up on the festival – running nationally through 30 August via ACMI's Cinema 3 platform, and extending the MIFF experience a full week beyond the in-cinema season's close. The online program brings together a curated selection of festival highlights alongside dedicated short film collections – including the Footy Shorts and Sovereign Shorts programs streaming for free – giving audiences across Australia the chance to discover something new, wherever they are.
MIFF Awards 2026
Bright Horizons Award supported by VicScreen: La Gradiva directed by Marine Atlan
Blackmagic Design Best Australian Director Award: Dario Russo, The Fox
The Uncle Jack Charles Award, supported by the MIFF Lumiere Patrons: Talia Liddle, Protest on the Dance Floor – film direction
Intrepid Audience Award: Hard as Puck directed by Isaac Elliott
MIFF Schools Youth Jury Award presented by Collarts: Sad Girlz directed by Fernanda Tovar
Notes
MIFF 2026 runs in-cinema from 6-23 August.
MIFF Online runs 14-30 August – a limited selection of festival highlights and short film packages available on demand via ACMI's dedicated streaming platform Cinema 3. Short films screen for free; feature films are paid on-demand.
The 2026 MIFF Awards took place on Saturday 22 August at Rydges Melbourne.
The flagship MIFF Bright Horizons Award is supported by VicScreen. The winner receives $140,000.
The Uncle Jack Charles Award is supported by the MIFF Lumiere Patrons. The winner receives a $20,000 cash prize.
The Blackmagic Design Best Australian Director Award, supported by Blackmagic Design, awards the winner with a prize of $50,000 and a fully kitted URSA Cine 12K camera valued at $27,500.
The Intrepid Audience Award is based on MIFF-goers rating their favourite film from the program via the MIFF app or online – more details at miff.com.au/audience-award.
MIFF Schools Youth Jury Award, presented by Collarts, awards $10,000. The jury is comprised of three Top Screen 2026 filmmakers who select a winner from within the MIFF Schools Program.
To purchase final tickets and explore the full program visit miff.com.au.
