The Meaford International Film Festival (MIFF) is set to go this weekend, bringing several movies to the local silver screen.
The Meaford Culture Foundation event will run from Friday to Sunday at Meaford Hall.
The festival will start on Friday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. with the showing of The Zone Of Interest. This film shows Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss and his family try to build a life while living next to the infamous concentration camp. The film won the 2024 Oscar for Best International Feature Film.
That evening at 7 p.m., residents can catch Io Capitano which shows the story of a teenage boy and his cousin who decide to leave Dakar in Senegal and make their way to Europe.
The festival will resume on the Saturday at 1:30 p.m. with Seven Winters in Tehran. This film features a female student in Tehran who was hanged for murder after she had acted in self-defence against a rapist. For a pardon and after seven years in prison, she would have had to retract her testimony. This film won the 2024 Best Documentary awards at both the Berlin International Film Festival and German Film Awards.
Later at 7 p.m., MIFF will show The Peasants, a story about a young woman who is determined to forge her own path in a late 19th century Polish village, a hotbed of gossip and on-going feuds, held together by following traditions and deep-rooted patriarchy.
The Sunday matinee at 1:30 will feature The Persian Version, which shows a large Iranian-American family and an uncovered secret which launches the estranged mother and daughter into discovering the past. This film won the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Choice Award.
Capping off the festival Sunday evening at 7 p.m. is The Monk and The Gun. This film shows an American who travels into Bhutan in search of a valuable antique rifle and crosses paths with a young monk who wanders through the mountains in an effort to make things right again. It won the 2023 Vancouver International Film Festival’s Audience Choice award.
Each night will end with a catered dinner by local restaurants in Meaford.
More details on the ticketed event can be found on the MIFF website here.