Proud supporters of the 2014 Melbourne International Film Festival

Arts, film culture and moving image lovers of Melbourne will be excited to see what's in store for this year's Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). MIFF is one of the oldest film festivals in the world and an iconic Melbourne event which occurs annually across venues right in the heart of the city.

The Faculty of Arts' Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences (GSHSS) is proud to be a 2014 cultural partner of the Melbourne International Film Festival, one of the most significant screen events in Australia. The Faculty of Arts, GSHSS and MIFF share a common dedication to fostering progression and development in the arts. MIFF offers Australia's largest showcase of new Australian cinema and is the country's most vocal champion of emerging and established local filmmaking talent.

Whereas most of her spare time at University was spent in cafes drinking coffee and arguing with fellow students about psychoanalytic film theory, Hayley Inch has been an incredibly active participant in the Melbourne film community since graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) with a double major in Cinema Studies and Art History.

In addition to volunteering for other film organisations such as Senses of Cinema and the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival, and contributing pieces about Melbourne's film and food happenings for Broadsheet magazine, Hayley currently devotes herself to Membership Coordination for the Melbourne International Film Festival. Here she describes her role;

"I look after the Membership Program. The members are some of the most passionate supporters of MIFF, and my job is to make sure they receive all their benefits, such as monthly free screenings of new release films, and that during the festival they all have as fun and film-filled time as possible. It's pretty great to be a part of one of the biggest film organisations in the country, and to be able to experience a community that are really passionate in their adoration of film. Festival time itself is so exciting, there are events and screenings occurring all the time, and you meet so many amazing and talented people. It really is this wonderful, crazed celebration of film that engulfs the city for seventeen days."

With a job that many cinephiles would dream of, Hayley is quick to emphasise the role that her studies played in landing her the job.

"I started at MIFF as an intern, which is a position I wouldn't have gained without the network that I established at the University of Melbourne. The cinema studies program at the University had so many ties within the Melbourne film community, which is quite small, and it really is an industry where your success does depend on who you know", she says.

The First Glance film program has been announced by MIFF, featuring sessions from 31 July through until the 17 August 2014. Amongst the high profile films announced, a number of standard films include 20,000 Days on Earth, a documentary on Nick Cave by British artists Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth; Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster; Babylon, a satire on crime, news and the London Metropolitan Police from the writers behind The Thick of It and director Danny Boyle; Richard Linklater's extraordinary Boyhood; and a documentary on Alejandro Jodorowsky's lost film production of Dune, to name just a few.

More information about the festival, or to book your tickets.

Visit our website to learn more about Screen and Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, or our professionally oriented Masters of Arts and Cultural Management (with an optional specialisation in the moving image).