Curious Film cuts a swathe at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival with five films on the the program. Unafraid to get behind the tougher topics, the themes of the Curious stable this year are as varied as they are visceral.

The offerings range from rescued Swedish footage of radical Black Power activists, to an 85 year-old sushi master, a cult Japanese love story, a 10 year-old gangster, and lastly an unemployed children's TV mascot.

The trajectory for the production and distribution company is on a smooth upward incline - a course unharmed by the recent Canal Plus Grand Prix win at Cannes Critic's Week this year with the Stephen Kang-directed short film, Blue, also screening at the festival.

Matt Noonan, executive producer at Curious said it had been only just over a year since the company began acquiring the distribution rights to independent films.
"We're really pleased to have such a strong presence at this year’s festival," he said. "We've already lined up two Australasian features Errors of the Human Body, and Venice for 2012, and Kevin Smith's Red State to see out this year, so we’re excited about what lies ahead.”

For the time being, anyone in or near Melbourne can catch the following 2011 flicks at MIFF

Black Power Mix Tapes 1967-75, Norwegian Wood, Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Toomelah. 

Jiro Dreams of Sushi
This documentary depicts the life of 85 year-old Jiro Ono, a legendary sushi master and owner of the tiny world-famous sushi bar in Tokyo’s Ginza subway station.
July 30 and  Aug 7
 
David Gelb's documentary on the world’s greatest sushi chef utilizes a spare, elegant style that perfectly complements its subject’s monastic devotion to purity – and like the master himself, turns something simple into a work of art.
Time Out

The Black Power Mix Tapes 1967-75
A treasure trove of archived film reels rescued from the vaults of Swedish television illuminates the heyday of the Black Power movement in the US and the political hysteria that surrounded it. The musically driven nine-year journey through this period of major social upheaval was captured by Swedish journalists in the US on the front lines of this radical militant activism.
July 26

Norwegian Wood
This adaptation of Murakami Haruki’s novel, directed by Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung, is set in the late 1960s in Tokyo. Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama) falls in love with fragile Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi) and becomes entwined in an emotionally involving love triangle.
July 24 and 26

The film's lyricism is unshakeable... One moment we are watching these characters, the next - without quite noticing - we are inside them, walking about in their emotional landscapes.
Financial Times

Toomelah
In one of Australia's most impoverished Aboriginal communities, ten-year-old Daniel is all but abandoned by his uncaring mother and alcoholic father, when he falls in with a local drug dealer’s crew.
July 30 and 31
 
 
The Melbourne International Film Festival runs from 21st July – 7th August.