The first ten films of AFF 2026 are here and on sale now.

This first look at the program features Oscar®-winning directors, Cannes Film Festival winners, an Australian premiere and some of the most exciting women directors emerging in world cinema. Across fiction, documentary and experimental cinema, these films explore grief, memory, creativity, family and the forces that reshape a life. Meet the first ten films coming to AFF this October.

These must-see films include three prize winners, Everytime, Josephine and Yo (Love Is A Rebellious Bird) from up-and-coming women directors.

EVERYTIME

Austrian filmmaker Sandra Wollner follows The Trouble With Being Born (AFF 2020) with another uncompromising work of speculative fiction.

Winner of the Un Certain Regard Prize at Cannes 2026, Everytime is a haunting exploration of grief that resists easy answers. Wollner’s latest film is unsettling, formally precise and difficult to shake.

JOSEPHINE

The second feature from US filmmaker Beth de Araújo, Josephine stars Gemma Chan and Channing Tatum and won both the US Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance.

After witnessing a violent attack, a young girl and her family struggle to regain their footing while navigating trauma and the legal system around them. Told through a child’s perspective, it is an intimate and confronting study of the ways a single event can fracture a family.

YO (LOVE IS A REBELLIOUS BIRD)

Winner of the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 2026 Berlinale, Yo (Love Is A Rebellious Bird) is a vividly handmade portrait of a friendship spanning more than 20 years.

Emmy Award-winning director Anna Fitch co-directs with longtime creative partner Banker White. Fitch was 24 when she met 73-year-old Yo (Yolanda) at a rummage sale. Born in Switzerland in 1924, Yo had been a suburban Californian wife and mother before the upheaval of the 1960s prompted her to break free. Using puppetry, one-third-scale models and a replica of Yo’s home, Fitch reconstructs her friend’s remarkable life, including its final chapter.

Three films arrive at AFF following major appearances at Cannes, each placing an intimate relationship against a much larger landscape. Across post-war Germany, a correspondence between two scholars and New York at the height of the AIDS crisis, history is never far from the personal.

FATHERLAND

Returning to Germany after 16 years in exile, writer Thomas Mann embarks on a road trip with his daughter Erika through a country divided by the aftermath of war.

Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski, who won Best Director at Cannes 2026, Fatherland stars Hanns Zischler and Sandra Hüller. Following his award-winning Ida and Cold War, Pawlikowski once again examines identity, family, guilt and belonging through the lives of people caught between private loyalties and political upheaval.

ALL OF A SUDDEN

From Oscar®-winning Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car), All Of A Sudden earned the Best Actress Award at Cannes 2026, shared by its two leads, Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto.

The pair play two scholars—one French, one Japanese—who begin exchanging letters about chance and risk. When illness enters their correspondence, their academic discussion gradually becomes something more intimate. Hamaguchi turns conversation into cinema, finding emotional weight in language, distance and the possibility of connection.

THE MAN I LOVE

Set in New York during the height of the AIDS crisis, The Man I Love follows an art-filled life shaped by love, illness and the everyday rituals shared between people.

Directed by Ira Sachs, the film premiered in competition at Cannes 2026 and stars Rami Malek alongside Tom Sturridge, Luther Ford, Rebecca Hall and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. Tender without becoming sentimental, it is a portrait of love lived under the pressure of history.

AFF’s music strand is as strong as ever in 2026. The program will feature, direct from Berlinale and Sheffield Documentary Festival, Everybody Digs Bill Evans and Wolf.

EVERYBODY DIGS BILL EVANS

At the height of his career, jazz pianist Bill Evans is left reeling by the death of his bassist. Depression and addiction follow, and he retreats to his family home as he slowly begins to reconnect with the world and his music.

Directed by British filmmaker Grant Gee, Everybody Digs Bill Evans won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2026 Berlinale. Elegantly filmed in black and white, the feature brings 1960s New York and suburban Florida to life while examining the uneven paths taken by members of the same family.

WOLF

Following sold-out sessions at Sheffield DocFest, Christian Cargill’s documentary Wolf will make its Australian premiere at AFF.

In the garden of his seaside home, musician Patrick Wolf sits down with his friend Tilda Swinton to reflect on a life shaped by creativity, grief, addiction and return. Rising from the early-2000s London music scene, Wolf moved between indie pop and the avant-garde before personal trauma made music increasingly difficult to face.

The final two films in this first announcement show very different sides of Australian filmmaking: a contemporary experiment in image and sound, and the 30th anniversary return of a film that became an international success.

PHENOMENA

Australian filmmaker Josef Gatti turns scientific observation into a large-scale cinematic experience in Phenomena.

Captured entirely in camera, without visual effects or digital artifice, the film uses practical experiments to reveal patterns and forces operating across the natural world. Music from Nils Frahm and an original score by Rival Consoles accompany a journey from the subatomic to the cosmological, blurring the boundaries between science lesson, experimental film and sensory encounter.

SHINE

Thirty years after its release, Scott Hicks’ Shine returns to the big screen in a new 4K restoration.

The acclaimed Australian film follows the life of pianist David Helfgott, with Geoffrey Rush’s Oscar®-winning performance alongside Noah Taylor, Sir John Gielgud, Lynn Redgrave and Armin Mueller-Stahl. South Australian director Scott Hicks will present this anniversary screening and reflect on the film and the international career that followed.

The first ten films of AFF 2026 are on sale now, with more program announcements to come.

Explore the films, choose your sessions and start building your festival list. Adelaide Film Festival returns from 14–25 October 2026.

Documentary Talk: Filming Up Close

Documentary Talk: Filming Up Close

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