One minute it’s balmy skies, the next it’s mind numbingly freezing. But that’s Melbourne isn’t it? Thankfully, for the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) everything is indoors. And you can keep your coat, hat and scarf on.

Nor do you have to talk to or look at anyone with their winter misery, because it’s all staged in the dark. Perfect. This year is for celebrating though; 60 years it’s been going and getting mightier with each year it returns. Greek-wise there’s not much on, except for the much celebrated and award winning short by South Australian film maker Anthony Maras, The Palace. The Palace is set during the 1974 conflict in Cyprus focusing on one Greek Cypriot family fleeing the advancing Turkish forces who take refuge in an abandoned Ottoman-era palace. A young Turkish Cypriot conscript comes face-to-face with this family in hiding, and is forced to confront the reality of war and his role in it.

The Palace is inspired by a story, about, “a Cypriot mother faced with an impossible decision, as soldiers closed in near her hiding spot – her young baby boy was restless. She had to either let him cry and risk the consequences, or try silencing him by forcing his mouth shut and risk suffocating her baby. I could never vanquish this scenario from my head and used it as one of the key story threads for The Palace,” said Maras.

The Palace so far has won the Dendy Award for Best Short Film at Sydney Film Festival 2011. It also won Best Short Film – Audience Award at its first public screening at the 2011 Adelaide Film Festival. Rumours abound, there’s a good possibility it may make the short list for nomination at next year’s Academy Awards. One of the jewels in this year’s festival crown is the premiere screening of the first two episodes of ABC TV dramatisation of Christos Tsiolkas’ multi-award winning novel, The Slap. So far it has won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, the Australian Book Industry Book of the Year award, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, the ABA Book of the Year and the Association for the Study of Australian Literature Gold Award. If you haven’t read it, you should – it’s brilliant, but if for some reason you’re incapable of this then the screen version is sure to satisfy. It would appear the author is also satisfied with the arrangement.

“The ABC has always felt like the natural home for The Slap,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to develop a ground-breaking piece of television that embodies a rawness and a diversity that we haven’t seen on our screens before. I am particularly excited by the calibre of the writers and the producers on this project, some of the most exciting talents working at present in our film and screen culture.”

Screening Times: ‘The Palace’: Saturday 30 July, 1.30 pm at the Greater Union Cinema. ‘The Slap’: Thursday 4 August, 6.30 pm at the Greater Union Cinema. More info www.miff.com.au