The selection has not been finalised, but the retrospective will consist of at least 10 films, including, says Carey "one or two things that people perhaps haven't seen", such as shorts and dance films made in the 1970s. It will include the world premiere of a feature documentary, Molly Reynolds' Another Country, in which Gulpilil plays a significant role, reflecting on his community in Ramingining and the challenges it faces. Watching this documentary, said Carey, proved to be a catalyst for the retrospective.  "What a man, what a life. And he has been in some of the best films Australia has produced."

Gulpilil made his first movie appearance in his teens in Nicolas Roeg's 1971 Walkabout. His first lead role was in Rolf de Heer's The Tracker, which was the MIFF opening night film in 2002. And last year he won a best actor award at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section, for his performance in de Heer's Charlie's Country. In between, he played opposite Dennis Hopper in Mad Dog Morgan, he was in Peter Weir's The Last Wave, he starred in the children's classic Storm Boy. He has been in films ranging from Crocodile Dundee to The Proposition, Rabbit-Proof Fence to Australia. In 2004, Craig Ruddy's portrait of him won the Archibald Prize.

Gulpilil will be a festival guest, Carey said, with an "in conversation" session devoted to him.

Carey announced other elements of MIFF 2015, including Vertical Cinema, a large-scale site-specific work that she describes as more like a performance than a film screening. It is an Austrian-Dutch co-production, and it consists of 10 films from experimental filmmakers and audio-visual artists that were specially commissioned for a vertical format. With its large-scale images and high-volume soundtrack, Carey said, "It's a very sensory experience. But it is also about the site of the event as much as the content." In Melbourne, it will be projected at Deakin Edge.

Other films to screen at MIFF range from Iranian director Jafar Panahi's new film, Tehran Taxi, in which the filmmaker drives a cab around the city, to Alex Ross Perry's Queen Of Earth, starring Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss, a claustrophic thriller shot on 16 mm film in a single location, that Carey describes as "so compelling, and very reminiscent of 1970s Roman Polanski".

MIFF will announce further titles shortly, including films sourced from the recent Cannes Film Festival

MIFF runs from July 30 to August 16.