Curious director Zia Mandviwalla’s short film Amadi to screen at the Melbourne Film Festival
Curious director Zia Mandviwalla’s short film Amadi is one of just five international shorts selected for this year’s Melbourne Film Festival, screening Sunday 1st August at 12:15pm.
Amadi tells the story of a lonely Rwandan refugee who’s trying to make sense of his new life in New Zealand when he strikes up an unlikely friendship with his neighbor, Jane. The film explores dislocation, prejudice, displacement and loneliness, and it screens alongside four other international short films at this year’s festival.
Last year, Zia won SPADA New Filmmaker of the Year following the success of her shorts, Eating Sausage and Clean Linen, so her selection at MIFF cements her reputation as one of the region’s top emerging directors. She says her work is “about exploring the periphery: the people who live on the edges of our world and beyond our common spheres of perception.”
In a recent interview with CREATIVE magazine, she explained her work bysaying: “It has never been my intention to be culturally charged in mystorytelling. My ideas are usually grounded in a state of mind oremotional predicament I am interested in exploring – I just happen tofind the framework of certain cultures good backdrops against which toset those ideas.”
The Melbourne International Film Festival hasAustralia’s largest film festival audience and it runs from 22nd July -8 August. Amadi also screened at the Zealand International FilmFestival in Auckland earlier this month.
To purchase tickets, visit melbournefilmfestival.com.au
To view Zia’s commercial show reel, visit: curiousfilm.com