MIFF Fulldome Showcase 2026
Saturday 8 & Saturday 15 August
The Melbourne Planetarium presents two unique fulldome showcases as part of the 2026 Melbourne International Film Festival
Melbourne Planetarium will screen the latest and best fulldome films from around the world as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Tickets
Date & Time
Saturday 8 & Saturday 15 August
6:30 (doors open) to 11pm
Showcase One: 7pm
Showcase Two: 9pm
Key information
Viewer Advice: These 360-degree films utilize vibrant, high-resolution animations with rapid motion across your entire field of view. This program contains stroboscopic imagery that can affect individuals with photosensitivity.
PROGRAM
Get Tickets
The Heart of the Forest
Markku Laine
The Heart of the Forest is a mesmerizing odyssey into the world of trees, unveiling their interconnected lives and the breathtaking biodiversity flourishing within the woods. Deep within the woods stands an ancient and all-knowing oak, the Tree of Life, who serves as both the protagonist and the narrator of the story. The story reveals the forest as a living, breathing organism, full of wisdom, connection and resilience. The film is a poetic call to protect what remains of our ancient forests and a reminder that their fate is intimately tied to our own.
Vaka Moana: Ancestors of the Future
Tom Murray
Australia 2026 | 48 min
Step aboard a real Vaka Moana (ocean-going canoe) and join master navigator Captain Peia Patai as he guides us across the Polynesian Pacific by stars, swells, and traditional ecological knowledge. This is a celebration of one of the greatest cultural renaissance movements of our times – the resurrection of Polynesian Wayfinding. In Vaka Moana we sail to the remote Cook Island of Mangaia and learn about ancient methods that can aid us in navigating planet Earth towards a safer future. The film also presents an inspirational insight into Indigenous ecological stewardship: ancient wisdom offering new answers to global environmental challenges. Vaka Moana: Ancestors of the Future provides a rare and thrilling opportunity to experience the ocean-going skills that carried Polynesians throughout the Pacific – the last incredible chapter in the human migration story of planet Earth!
Écosystème
Art by Maxime Dangles & Dylan Côté
Canada 2022 | 37 min | French language with subtitles
An immersive sensory dive into the depths of the sea.
The underwater world definitely isn’t quiet… and what we hear there tells a story. Waves, boat engines, marine animals communicating, the ice pack cracking or the sound of flowing water – proof of steady melting – this immersive film explores a little-known component of this ecosystem: its soundscape.
Écosystème is the result of a long residency combining research and creation. The project originated from a team of marine ecology researchers who wanted to experiment with the links between art and science. Back from a polar mission, they called upon the talents of electronic music producer Maxime Dangles to create new musical material from their underwater sound recordings.
To illustrate this sound journey, visual artist Dylan Cote set out to create a dark and enigmatic aquatic universe inhabited by synthetic and minimalist entities. The animated film dives into this world and explores its imaginary lands, guided by a narrative thread showing their progressive disturbance.
Rapid Eye Movement: A collective dream in total immersion
Rapid Eye Movement
Art by Bertie Sampson & Harry Yeff
Canada 2025 | 45 mins
How can we create a collective dream? This is the question at the heart of Rapid Eye Movement, conceived by Harry Yeff and Bertie Sampson. The film stages a sensory journey through the various states of sleep and consciousness.
Rapid Eye Movement invites audiences to explore dreamlike landscapes constructed from fragments captured in the physical world. Dreams are the raw material, while the human mind and body serve as the instruments.
Audience participation was a driving force behind Rapid Eye Movement. Ahead of the production, the artists launched an online form to collect dreams from the public. Anyone could contribute to the project—sharing dreams and nightmares, describing visions, or submitting images and sounds.
Using these textual and visual elements, the artists juxtapose scenes and construct intricate 3D architectures—abstract, stylized dream worlds that are at once familiar and surreal— combining creations and generative AI and merging music and live images.
The narrative structure is inspired by the five sleep cycles. Rapid Eye Movement refers to the final phase—the dream stage, just before waking—when elements from everyday life resurface and blend into a parallel reality.
Rapid Eye Movement blurs the boundaries between reality and the dream world presenting key moments from the artists’ experimental process.
Gallery
ACCESSIBILITY
Please view our accessibility page for general information. A sensory map of Melbourne Museum can be found on our Visual Stories page where step-by-step visual and written access guides are available. Contact our team on 13 11 02 or email us at [email protected] to discuss how we can support your visit.
