Kiloran Hiscock

When the mother of a 5-year-old girl doesn't come home from work, her babysitter suspects the father of foul play, and decides to take matters into her own hands.

In the aftermath of Australia's marriage equality marches, a young queer woman has her date interrupted by a homeless man after accidentally dropping a dollar into his coffee cup. This sets off a chain of events that sees her dragging him around the city in a bid to buy him a new one and eventually forcing the two to bond for the briefest of moments. What ensues over that evening changes both of them forever.

At once potently restrained and explosively oddball, Mira’s Daughter is an examination of narcissism, co-dependency and the exacting demands of fame from 2021 Flickerfest Outstanding Emerging Female Director Alisha Hnatjuk.

Vic finds a room to rent in a metal band’s decrepit Brunswick share house. Her relief at finding shelter during a housing crisis, however, crumbles away faster than the lead paint peeling off the walls. The house, which doesn’t seem to show up on maps, features a shower that either burns or freezes, a ceiling with holes that have holes of their own, strange plant life that spills forth from every crack in the walls – and Terry, a housemate who seems aggressively unbothered by any of it. All of this would be fine with Vic if it weren’t for two problems: her sleep deprivation from being woken by a horrible, foundation-shaking screaming noise from behind a mysterious locked door; and her unshakeable impression that something inside the house is getting very hungry.