Jimmy Barnes’ Working Class Man will get its world premiere next month at the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Andrew Farrell’s feature-length production is one of the standouts from this year’s MIFF program, announced overnight. In it, the Cold Chisel frontman’s life and career is explored in intimidate detail for this “comprehensive portrait,” reps say, which picks up from 2018’s Working Class Boy, on which Farrell was a producer.
Like the autobiography of the same name, the doc follows the rocker’s transition from Glasgow’s tenements to Australian stadiums, capturing unprecedented access to trace his “journey from troubled youth to national treasure”.
Barnes’ heroics are etched in the history books. A two-time inductee into the ARIA Hall of Fame, Barnes has the ARIA Chart record for the solo artist with the most No. 1 albums, with 16. As a member of Cold Chisel, that number rises to 22, also a record.
With Barnes at the mic, Cold Chisel reunited last year for a massive 50th anniversary tour in support of the retrospective 50 Years – The Best of, shifting more than 250,000 tickets.
MIFF is entering its 73rd edition. More than 275 screen works are confirmed for festival, which will splash across Melbourne’s big screens and into regional Victoria from August 7-24.
“MIFF returns to illuminate the dark depths of Melbourne winter with a globe-trotting array of exceptional cinema, incredible experiences, and the biggest festival celebration of Australian filmmaking on the planet,” comments artistic director Al Cossar.
The festival will open with Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, starring Rose Byrne, as part of the ten-strong Bright Horizons Competition.
Also, MIFF features two extraordinary Sound and Screen events: Julia Holter: The Passion of Joan of Arc, combining Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 silent masterpiece with a live score by the acclaimed LA composer, and Parasite Live in Concert with composer Jung Jae il conducting Orchestra Victoria through his score while Bong Joon-ho’s Academy Award-winner plays on screen.
MIFF is an “invitation to discover a world of film, and the world on film,” says Cossar, “to up-res your cinephile credentials, and to binge your way through an epic program brimming with imagination and ideas.”
Visit miff.com.au to explore the full program.
