Inside (Premiere Fund)

Guy Pearce stars in this prison-set portrait of institutionalisation and salvation – the feature debut from Short Film Palme d’Or winner Charles Williams.

When Mel Blight (Vincent Miller) is transferred from juvenile detention to a maximum-security adult jail, he’s assigned to share a cell with one of Australia’s most infamous inmates, Mark Shepard (Cosmo Jarvis, Shōgun). Seizing an opportunity, the hardened Warren Murfett (Pearce) recruits Mel to kill Mark, who has a contract on his head. As Warren nears parole and a reunion on the outside with his son Adrian (Toby Wallace, Acute Misfortune, MIFF 2018), the relationship between the three men grows more entangled and intimate. Who can make amends for their crimes? And who is beyond saving?

Executive-produced by Thomas M. Wright (The Stranger, MIFF 2022) and supported by the MIFF Premiere Fund, Inside is the impressive first feature from ascendant filmmaker Williams, whose drama All These Creatures (MIFF 2018) won the Short Film Palme d’Or at Cannes. Shot in Melbourne and regional Victoria, the film showcases a trio of powerhouse performances – from Miller in his debut role, to a transformative turn from Jarvis, to Pearce (who also appears in The Shrouds, MIFF 2024) conveying both hope and hopelessness as a prison lifer – and poignantly examines the complex interplay between incarceration, rehabilitation and remorse.