If you want to see the film adaptation of Helen Garner's true-crime story Joe Cinque's Consolation, you'll have to wait: the tickets to its two sessions at MIFF were snapped up within hours of going on sale two weeks ago.

That's the sort of start Sotiris Dounoukos​ has dreamt of since his VCA graduating effort won best student film at the festival in 2004.

"I always wanted to premiere my first feature at MIFF; it's a milestone," says Dounoukos, a former lawyer who makes his feature debut with this adaptation. "It's definitely a big moment."

Garner's 2004 book about the death of Canberra man Joe Cinque from a heroin overdose deliberately administered by his girlfriend, Anu Singh, and her subsequent murder trial is one of the most revered and controversial works of non-fiction published in this country. Tackling it – and the issues and memories associated with it – was never going to be easy.