Adelaide Film Festival

Todaysaturday 18th October

2000 Meters to Andriivka

10:15 am

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Oscar-winning director Mstyslav Chernov, acclaimed for 20 Days in Mariupol (2023), shifts from civilians to soldiers in 2000 Meters to Andriivka. Drawn from helmet and body-cam footage during the 2023 counteroffensive, the film follows a platoon advancing through mined forest toward an occupied village.

First Nations Shorts

11:45 am

The Mercury

A celebration of First Nations storytelling.

Richard Leplastrier: Framing the View

12:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Revered by architects around the world, Richard Leplastrier’s search for beauty in his career is interwoven with his own life in a bush camp on the edge of Sydney.

Perla

12:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Australian Premiere.

In 1981 Vienna, a Slovakian exile struggles to support her daughter. When the child’s father re-appears in her life, Perla makes the dangerous journey back to communist Czechoslovakia. Based on the director’s grandmother, Perla is torn between the demands of conflicting loves that threaten to pull her life apart.

ChaO

12:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Australian Premiere.

Playful anime chaos in a dazzling, near-future Shanghai. A mermaid princess proposes on sight, dragging a shy engineer into civic uproar, sweet misfires and whiplash gags. STUDIO4°C layers intricate streetscapes with a bright, warm romance.

The Tale of Silyan

01:00 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

Australian Premiere.

Directed by Tamara Kotevska of Oscar nominated Honeyland (2019), this Australian premiere unfolds with quiet beauty and transformative warmth. In rural North Macedonia, a dispossessed farmer rescues a wounded white stork. Against growing hardship, their improbable bond echoes legend.

From Life to Screen: Re-Presenting First Nations Stories

Screen Conversations

01:15 pm

The Mercury

Join NITV's Dena Curtis in conversation with directors Pauline Clague (The Colleano Heart) and Dylan Coleman (Catchin' Mummo) as they discuss their process in transforming personal journeys into screen stories.

Orwell: 2+2=5

02:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Orwell was not just a writer who chronicled the past, but a thinker who understood and presaged the creeping totalitarianism of the present. Raoul Peck’s biographical study is an insightful analysis targeting the demagoguery, the organised lying and the surveillance technologies that constitute the weapons wielded by the thought police of 2025.

Edge of Life

03:00 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

World Premiere.

Pink Carpet.

We all know our lives will end and yet act as if death is a mirage. A pair of palliative care specialists allow renowned Emmy Award-winning artist Lynette Wallworth an opportunity to explore death with calmness, and even joy, through their use of psychedelics in a world-first trial for palliative care patients.

Yohanna

03:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Australian Premiere.

Guest in attendance.

Young Catholic nun Yohanna frantically searches for the stolen truck she has borrowed to deliver humanitarian supplies to one of Indonesia’s poorest provinces, Sumba, beautifully captured by skilled cinematography. Finding herself in a murky world of slave child labour, she is desperate to help.

The Guardian of Stories

03:30 pm

The Mercury

Australian Premiere.

Siphai is on a mission to save the rich oral history of Laos. He searches out elderly storytellers, reviving their folk tales through the most magical collaboration with local puppeteers. It is inspiring to see storytelling brought to life in such a direct and enchanting fashion.

Fortune Favours the Bold

Screen Conversations

04:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Directors Dario Russo (The Fox) and Zoe Pepper (Birthright) discuss the making of two films that stand out from the crowd because of their boldness.

Until the Sky Falls Quiet

04:00 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

World Premiere.

Guest in attendance.

Two Sydney doctors volunteer to work in Gaza. This is the story of their time in a hell on earth. They experience frightful scenes of carnage including the deaths of many children. But they also bear witness to the resilience and generosity of many people.

Audience advice: This film contains distressing images.

Rental Family

04:30 pm

The Regal Theatre

Australian Premiere.

An underemployed American actor living in Tokyo finds himself playing people missing in others’ lives – a father to a Eurasian girl competing to get into an elite school, a journalist documenting a retired film director’s forgotten oeuvre, and a foreign groom for a bride needing to justify leaving both Japan and her parents behind.

The Secret Agent

05:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

A Cannes standout set in 1977 Brazil, The Secret Agent follows a fugitive father returning home during Carnival to escape with his son. Vivid bursts of carnivalesque playfulness collide with the stark brutality of military rule, revealing the absurdities and dangers of authoritarian life.

Our Hero, Balthazar

05:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

A privileged, performative teen becomes convinced an online troll is a school shooter and drives across the country to confront him. Our Hero, Balthazar is a jet-black satire of performative activism, fragile masculinity, and the hunger for attention in Gen Z culture.

Phantoms of July

06:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Australian Premiere.

Whimsical and beautifully strange, Phantoms of July blends folklore and modern life in a lyrical four-part fable. When Ursula and Neda embark on a ghost hunt, their encounter becomes a story of eccentric locals, spectral rumours and the surprising connections strangeness can spark.

Animation Shorts

06:00 pm

The Mercury

A celebration of the best in Animated short filmmaking from Australia and around the world.

Penny Lane is Dead

06:30 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

World Premiere.

Guest in attendance.

Pink Carpet.

A sweltering beach house party in 1986 turns savage when a spiked cupcake, a jealous cousin, and a gang of violent men crash the scene. Penny Lane is Dead is a punk-fuelled, blood-soaked survival thriller laced with dark comedy and gendered rage.

Frankenstein

07:00 pm

The Regal Theatre

A brilliant but egotistical scientist brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.

Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man

07:00 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

Barnesy tells it straight. No varnish, no mythmaking. In Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man, the Cold Chisel frontman traces how childhood harm became adult chaos, then a hard-won recovery, laying mental health on the table with humour, frankness and zero rock star mystique.

Resurrection

08:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

In a world devoid of dreams, a woman (Shu Qi) wakes up from brain surgery in a dystopian near future. As she recounts the history of China to an android (Jackson Yee), they live out several past lives together through a confluence of dream and memory, passing through five cinematic eras that reshape their shared experience.

Drunken Noodles

08:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Art student Adnan has moved to New York City, where he is house-sitting in his uncle’s apartment and undertaking an internship at a local gallery. With food delivery and sex both readily available via app, Adnan enters an erotic world of late-night encounters, delivered with the lightness of a lazy summer afternoon sliding into evening.

The Book of Sijjin and Illiyyin

08:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Australian Premiere.

Guest in attendance.

In rural Indonesia, Yuli grows up despised within her father’s household. Seeking retribution, she turns to a shaman and summons a djinn through corpse-bound ritual. The film fuses Islamic cosmology with unflinching body horror, transforming domestic cruelty into a terrifying vision of spiritual reckoning.

Birthright

09:00 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

Guest in attendance.

Evicted and jobless, Cory and his pregnant wife move back in with his boomer parents. What begins as uneasy dependence spirals into paranoia, as both generations confront their failures and fears. Birthright is a sharp, unsettling family satire of housing, inequality and the collapse of middle-class dreams.

Tomorrowsunday 19th October

She

12:00 pm

The Mercury

Australian Premiere.

She tells the story of the Vietnamese women who work at electronics factories. 80% of the 80,000 strong workforce is female. They do long shifts under gruelling conditions. Their primary contact with their children is by phone. Parsifal Reparato’s film questions the very structure of the global economy.

Cactus Pears

12:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

When Anand’s father dies, he returns to his family’s village to complete his filial duties. The village is another world, where homosexuality is not acknowledged. But it is also the home of Balya, with whom intimacy blossoms for Anand. A film of great simplicity and tenderness.

Blue Road - The Edna O'Brien Story

01:00 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

“I was born with this ability, and demon, to write. I was punished for it constantly.” In this candid and captivating final portrait, the late Edna O’Brien reflects on her incendiary life and literary legacy in her own words.

Unwelcomed

01:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Unwelcomed captures both the vast sweep of migration across mountains and deserts, and the intimate struggles of Venezuelan refugees on foot. With aerial panoramas and close testimony, it reveals a crisis of resilience, grief and hostility. Winner, Emerging International Filmmaker Award, Hot Docs 2025.

Speak.

02:00 pm

The Mercury

All-American teens Esther, Noor, Noah, Mfaz and Sam spend their year juggling the highs and lows of high school life, while preparing for the world’s largest and most intense public speaking competition, the NSDA Nationals. With just nine minutes to make their mark, they rail against life’s obstacles and prejudices to be heard.

Bugonia

02:00 pm

Capri Theatre

Lanthimos is back in this wild black comedy, again collaborating with powerhouse performers, Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. Conspiracists kidnap a Big Pharma Executive who they believe is an alien. Chaining her up, they have three days to stop an alien-triggered Armageddon by breaking her. A hilarious battle of wits ensues. 

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

03:00 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

Jeremy Allen White stars as the Boss, alongside Jeremy Strong, Stephen Graham and Australia’s Odessa Young in this portrait of an artist chasing perfection and battling generational demons. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is a rare candid biopic based on the book by Warren Zanes.

The Colleano Heart

03:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

World Premiere.

Guest in attendance.

Pink Carpet.

A circus family’s hidden legacy unfolds as descendants reunite across continents, uncovering their Aboriginal ancestry, global stardom, and the extraordinary secrets they kept in order to survive. Through the Colleano family's remarkable home movies, never-before-seen footage, family interviews and archival recordings, their extraordinary story is brought to life.

My Father’s Shadow

03:15 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

Set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s historic 1993 election, two brothers spend a day with their estranged father in Lagos. A standout at Cannes, My Father’s Shadow is a lyrical debut that captures the fragility of family bonds with quiet poetry and an unflinching sense of truth.

Plainclothes

03:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

In Syracuse, 1996, Lucas (Tom Blyth) is a rising undercover agent tasked with luring gay men to public toilets to arrest them. When he meets Andrew (Russell Tovey) on the job, he breaks the rules and falls in love. In his directorial debut, Carmen Emmi creates a striking film that draws the viewer into experiencing the world from Lucas’s perspective.

Eagles of the Republic

04:15 pm

The Mercury

George Fahmy (played by Fares Fares) is the greatest star of Egyptian cinema, known as ‘The Pharoah of the Screen’. This has its drawbacks, such as being forced to make government propaganda. Flying with the political eagles quickly leads him into a spiral of betrayal. Tarik Saleh brilliantly skewers the military government, completing his ‘Cairo Trilogy’ on the social structures of contemporary Egypt.

It Was Just an Accident

04:30 pm

Capri Theatre

Despite bans and imprisonment, Iranian master filmmaker Jafar Panahi continues to make great humanist films. In the middle of the night a damaged car arrives at mechanic Vahid’s garage. He hears something that triggers him to believe that the driver of the car is the official who had tortured him. But as he never saw his face, can he really be sure?

All That's Left of You

05:30 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

A powerful and urgent family epic, All That’s Left of You spans 75 years of Palestinian history. As a mother reflects on the events that shaped her son’s defiance, Cherien Dabis delivers a gripping, politically charged portrait of loss, legacy and resilience across generations.

Two Prosecutors

05:30 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

When a prosecutor investigates allegations made by a prisoner in a Stalinist prison, the pursuit of justice becomes a dangerous journey into the heart of a system devouring its own. There is absurd humour in Stalinist administration, but tyranny is always both banal and malevolent.

Victoria

05:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Australian Premiere.

Guest in attendance.

Victoria, a young beautician working in a suburban beauty parlour, has decided to elope with her Hindu boyfriend against her conservative Catholic parents’ ruling. Amid a never-ending roster of customers and teary phone calls to her unhelpful boyfriend, Victoria reflects on her situation while grappling with conflicting emotions.

A Useful Ghost

06:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Inspired by the Thai folklore legend of Mae Nak, Thai writer/director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke delivers a politically tinged, absurdist comedy/drama in which the ghost of a young woman returns to her husband as a bright-red vacuum cleaner, determined to prove herself a loving ghost.

The Fox

07:00 pm

Capri Theatre

AFFIF Preview.

Guest in attendance.

Pink Carpet.

A trickster fox is let loose in the henhouse of Australian culture. Nick is an average good bloke, but when his fiancée strays, a fox promises to tame his foxy lady. An all-star cast is headed by Jai Courtney and Emily Browning, with the voices of Olivia Colman and Sam Neill.

Wild Nights, Tamed Beasts

07:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Australian Premiere.

China, like many countries, faces the problem of an aging population. Ye Xiaolin is an enigmatic caregiver whose patients tend to die suddenly, and Deyong is a zookeeper whose closest friend is an old lion. They come to understand that love is the ability to understand pain.

Monday20th October

Made in SA

06:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Guest in attendance.

Pink Carpet.

The ever-popular Made in SA showcases the best in local short films. Remember their names for when they’re famous, these filmmakers will make you laugh, cry and shudder.

Tuesday21st October

Crocodiles

03:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Australian Premiere.

A Mexican photojournalist uncovers a shocking truth while investigating the murder of a colleague. This tense thriller is inspired by events that are all too true. Amnesty reports that 141 Mexican media workers have been killed this century, making it one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalism.

AFF Festival Bridges: Connecting WIP to the International Markets

Screen Conversations

04:30 pm

Stone & Chalk

Guest in attendance.

AFF CEO and Creative Director Mat Kesting talks with filmmakers who attended the world’s most important film market with their works in progress as part of AFF Goes to Cannes.

Jimpa

06:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Australian Premiere.

In Amsterdam, an Adelaide filmmaker and their non-binary teen reconnect with the family’s flamboyant patriarch. As old tensions resurface, Jimpa becomes a tender, emotionally precise portrait of queer family, care and the shifting boundaries between generations. Sophie Hyde’s most personal film yet, fresh from Sundance acclaim.

Mad Max and the Genius of George Miller

06:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

World Premiere.

*This film was not made with the collaboration of Kennedy Miller Mitchell or George Miller.

How did Mad Max leap from a scrappy Australian shoot to a global phenomenon? Drawing on remarkable archival footage, this documentary unpacks George Miller’s journey and reveals the meticulous craft that redefined action cinema and cemented the franchise as one of Australia’s greatest cultural exports.

Penny Lane Is Dead

09:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

World Premiere.

A sweltering beach house party in 1986 turns savage when a spiked cupcake, a jealous cousin, and a gang of violent men crash the scene. Penny Lane is Dead is a punk-fuelled, blood-soaked survival thriller laced with dark comedy and gendered rage.

Wednesday22nd October

Speak.

09:45 am

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

All-American teens Esther, Noor, Noah, Mfaz and Sam spend their year juggling the highs and lows of high school life, while preparing for the world’s largest and most intense public speaking competition, the NSDA Nationals. With just nine minutes to make their mark, they rail against life’s obstacles and prejudices to be heard.

AFF Youth Primary and Middle Shorts

10:15 am

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Maya, Give Me a Title

11:45 am

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Michel Gondry writes features, makes the coolest videos, and has the cutest daughter in the universe. He phones her every evening, and asks “Maya, give me a title,” then creates low-tech animations like Maya in the sea with a bottle of ketchup. Maya’s fantastic voyages will have the little ones dreaming, and the grown-ups smiling.

AFF Youth Senior Shorts

11:50 am

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

The AFF Youth Filmmaking Competition is an opportunity for South Australian students and young people to experience the power of film, make industry connections, and share their own stories on the big screen.

Becoming Filmmakers

AFF Youth Talk

01:20 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Hear from young filmmakers on how they established their filmmaking careers during the 2025 AFF Youth Schools Screening Day.

Orwell: 2+2=5

04:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Orwell was not just a writer who chronicled the past, but a thinker who understood and presaged the creeping totalitarianism of the present. Raoul Peck’s biographical study is an insightful analysis targeting the demagoguery, the organised lying and the surveillance technologies that constitute the weapons wielded by the thought police of 2025.

World Shorts

06:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

A celebration of the best in World Cinema short filmmaking.

ChaO

06:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Australian Premiere.

Playful anime chaos in a dazzling, near-future Shanghai. A mermaid princess proposes on sight, dragging a shy engineer into civic uproar, sweet misfires and whiplash gags. STUDIO4°C layers intricate streetscapes with a bright, warm romance.

Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua - Two Worlds

06:30 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

As he records his first album in te reo Māori, Marlon Williams opens a gentle window into the spaces between language, identity, and sound. This observational portrait is less about fluency than feeling, capturing an artist drawn toward something deeper than words.

Guest Appearance: Marlon Williams - Saturday 25 October | One night only!

We Are Not Powerless

06:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

World Premiere.

Guest in attendance.

Pink Carpet.

In December 2012, Muzafar Ali and his wife Nagina escaped the Taliban in Afghanistan. They found themselves living in Indonesia as refugees when Australia ‘stopped the boats’. Determined to do something, they started a small two room school, which soon became the hub of a community and the most successful refugee-led initiative in the world.

Twelve Moons

08:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Distressed by her inability to have a child, Mexico City architect Sofía descends into a self-destructive cycle of drug and alcohol addiction. Filled with precisely composed architectural images presented in striking black and white, writer-director Victoria Franco’s feature debut is a memorable and unflinching descent towards rock bottom.

A Useful Ghost

08:45 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

Inspired by the Thai folklore legend of Mae Nak, Thai writer/director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke delivers a politically tinged, absurdist comedy/drama in which the ghost of a young woman returns to her husband as a bright-red vacuum cleaner, determined to prove herself a loving ghost.

The Great History of Western Philosophy

08:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

A cosmic stop-motion animator is hired to make a philosophical film under the gaze of Chairman Mao. Like everything in this film, this should not be taken seriously. We are warned: “Don’t attempt to reason with this film. It’s raving mad.” Dadaists, moviejuicers, deranged avant-gardists, this is for you.

The Run

09:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

World Premiere.

Guest in attendance.

Pink Carpet.

The near future. A plague has ravaged the land, anarchy reigns, everyone’s on the run. Mac does delivery runs for an unseen manipulator. Aliah seizes her baby and runs for sanctuary. This stylish thriller from local director Stephen de Villiers uses SA locations as an appropriately harsh backdrop for white-knuckle suspense.

Thursday23rd October

Black Water

10:45 am

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Australian Premiere.

Blue Road - The Edna O'Brien Story

12:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

“I was born with this ability, and demon, to write. I was punished for it constantly.” In this candid and captivating final portrait, the late Edna O’Brien reflects on her incendiary life and literary legacy in her own words.

The Secret Agent

03:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

A Cannes standout set in 1977 Brazil, The Secret Agent follows a fugitive father returning home during Carnival to escape with his son. Vivid bursts of carnivalesque playfulness collide with the stark brutality of military rule, revealing the absurdities and dangers of authoritarian life.

Edge of Life

05:45 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

World Premiere.

We all know our lives will end and yet act as if death is a mirage. A pair of palliative care specialists allow renowned Emmy Award-winning artist Lynette Wallworth an opportunity to explore death with calmness, and even joy, through their use of psychedelics in a world-first trial for palliative care patients.

The Colleano Heart

06:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

World Premiere.

A circus family’s hidden legacy unfolds as descendants reunite across continents, uncovering their Aboriginal ancestry, global stardom, and the extraordinary secrets they kept in order to survive. Through the Colleano family's remarkable home movies, never-before-seen footage, family interviews and archival recordings, their extraordinary story is brought to life.

AFF Youth Gala

06:00 pm

The Mercury

Pink Carpet.

A special night for young filmmakers and families of the nominated films from the AFF Youth Filmmaking Competition.

The Tale of Silyan

06:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Australian Premiere.

Directed by Tamara Kotevska of Oscar nominated Honeyland (2019), this Australian premiere unfolds with quiet beauty and transformative warmth. In rural North Macedonia, a dispossessed farmer rescues a wounded white stork. Against growing hardship, their improbable bond echoes legend.

The Weed Eaters

06:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Australian Premiere.

From across the ditch comes this killer horror/comedy hybrid, in the blood-spattered tradition of Bad Taste and Black Sheep. An idyllic New Years getaway takes an unexpected turn when a bad batch of cursed weed unleashes horrific after-effects.

Eagles of the Republic

08:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

George Fahmy (played by Fares Fares) is the greatest star of Egyptian cinema, known as ‘The Pharoah of the Screen’. This has its drawbacks, such as being forced to make government propaganda. Flying with the political eagles quickly leads him into a spiral of betrayal. Tarik Saleh brilliantly skewers the military government, completing his ‘Cairo Trilogy’ on the social structures of contemporary Egypt.

Resurrection

08:00 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

In a world devoid of dreams, a woman (Shu Qi) wakes up from brain surgery in a dystopian near future. As she recounts the history of China to an android (Jackson Yee), they live out several past lives together through a confluence of dream and memory, passing through five cinematic eras that reshape their shared experience.

Phantoms of July

08:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Australian Premiere.

Whimsical and beautifully strange, Phantoms of July blends folklore and modern life in a lyrical four-part fable. When Ursula and Neda embark on a ghost hunt, their encounter becomes a story of eccentric locals, spectral rumours and the surprising connections strangeness can spark.

Perla

08:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Australian Premiere.

In 1981 Vienna, a Slovakian exile struggles to support her daughter. When the child’s father re-appears in her life, Perla makes the dangerous journey back to communist Czechoslovakia. Based on the director’s grandmother, Perla is torn between the demands of conflicting loves that threaten to pull her life apart.

Friday24th October

Maya, Give Me a Title

10:15 am

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

Michel Gondry writes features, makes the coolest videos, and has the cutest daughter in the universe. He phones her every evening, and asks “Maya, give me a title,” then creates low-tech animations like Maya in the sea with a bottle of ketchup. Maya’s fantastic voyages will have the little ones dreaming, and the grown-ups smiling.

She

11:00 am

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Australian Premiere.

She tells the story of the Vietnamese women who work at electronics factories. 80% of the 80,000 strong workforce is female. They do long shifts under gruelling conditions. Their primary contact with their children is by phone. Parsifal Reparato’s film questions the very structure of the global economy.

Mad Max and the Genius of George Miller

01:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

World Premiere.

*This film was not made with the collaboration of Kennedy Miller Mitchell or George Miller.

How did Mad Max leap from a scrappy Australian shoot to a global phenomenon? Drawing on remarkable archival footage, this documentary unpacks George Miller’s journey and reveals the meticulous craft that redefined action cinema and cemented the franchise as one of Australia’s greatest cultural exports.

The Guardian of Stories

04:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Australian Premiere.

Siphai is on a mission to save the rich oral history of Laos. He searches out elderly storytellers, reviving their folk tales through the most magical collaboration with local puppeteers. It is inspiring to see storytelling brought to life in such a direct and enchanting fashion.

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley

06:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

In It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, documentary filmmaker Amy Berg turns the camera on his bandmates and the women who loved him and knew him best, to tell the story of a poetic artist full of life, with a natural born talent and an uncanny musical ear.

No Other Choice

06:00 pm

Capri Theatre

Australian Premiere.

After 25 years, You Man-su loses his well-paying paper industry job. Suddenly looming is the loss of his beautiful family home in the forest. Man-su hatches a ruthless scheme to be the only real employment contender in his field. A black comedy on the economic anxiety haunting our times.

Wild Nights, Tamed Beasts

06:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Australian Premiere.

China, like many countries, faces the problem of an aging population. Ye Xiaolin is an enigmatic caregiver whose patients tend to die suddenly, and Deyong is a zookeeper whose closest friend is an old lion. They come to understand that love is the ability to understand pain.

Made in SA

06:15 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

The ever-popular Made in SA showcases the best in local short films. Remember their names for when they’re famous, these filmmakers will make you laugh, cry and shudder.

Mockbuster

06:30 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

World Premiere.

Guest in attendance.

Pink Carpet.

Local filmmaker Anthony Firth lands a gig with The Asylum, the studio behind Sharknado. Tasked with directing a schlock film, The Land That Time Forgot, in Adelaide on a shoestring budget, he turns the camera on himself, filming a behind-the-scenes documentary. Both productions will push their director to the brink.

Plainclothes

06:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

In Syracuse, 1996, Lucas (Tom Blyth) is a rising undercover agent tasked with luring gay men to public toilets to arrest them. When he meets Andrew (Russell Tovey) on the job, he breaks the rules and falls in love. In his directorial debut, Carmen Emmi creates a striking film that draws the viewer into experiencing the world from Lucas’s perspective.

Power Station

08:00 pm

The Mercury

Australian Premiere.

Two artist-activists plan to install solar panels on every building in their street. Take a community, mix in some vision and a dash of British eccentricity, and the result is everyday magic. By turns funny and heartwarming, this is a vibrant testament to the power of art in making change.

The Square

08:15 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

An animated romance blooms under the watchful eye of the North Korean state. When his secret lover vanishes, a foreign diplomat’s quiet search becomes a poetic, political thriller, rendered in minimalist but impactful animation. The Square blends heartbreak and surveillance with unsettling elegance.

Blue Moon

08:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

The afterparty of the opening night of Oklahoma, launching the partnership of Rogers and Hammerstein, is haunted by Rogers’ original writing collaborator, Lorenz Hart, a drunk with a dazzling and vicious wit. Richard Linklater is a master of modern dialogue-fuelled films, and this chamber piece is perfectly cast.

Rental Family

08:30 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

Australian Premiere.

An underemployed American actor living in Tokyo finds himself playing people missing in others’ lives – a father to a Eurasian girl competing to get into an elite school, a journalist documenting a retired film director’s forgotten oeuvre, and a foreign groom for a bride needing to justify leaving both Japan and her parents behind.

Crocodiles

08:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Australian Premiere.

A Mexican photojournalist uncovers a shocking truth while investigating the murder of a colleague. This tense thriller is inspired by events that are all too true. Amnesty reports that 141 Mexican media workers have been killed this century, making it one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalism.

The Book of Sijjin and Illiyyin

08:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Australian Premiere.

In rural Indonesia, Yuli grows up despised within her father’s household. Seeking retribution, she turns to a shaman and summons a djinn through corpse-bound ritual. The film fuses Islamic cosmology with unflinching body horror, transforming domestic cruelty into a terrifying vision of spiritual reckoning.

Bugonia

08:45 pm

Capri Theatre

Lanthimos is back in this wild black comedy, again collaborating with powerhouse performers, Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. Conspiracists kidnap a Big Pharma Executive who they believe is an alien. Chaining her up, they have three days to stop an alien-triggered Armageddon by breaking her. A hilarious battle of wits ensues. 

Saturday25th October

Ghost Elephants

10:30 am

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Australian Premiere.

Dr. Steve Boyes seeks an elusive group of elephants in the Angolan highlands. From kings to dung samples, from DNA to dreams, Werner Herzog remains committed to a vision of science which allows room for myth and wonder.

Don Dunstan Award: Robert Connolly in Conversation

Screen Conversations

12:00 pm

The Mercury

Guest in attendance.

Robert Connolly in conversation with AFF Patron, Sophie Hyde.

Reedland

12:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Australian Premiere.

Johan harvests reeds in the Dutch marshlands. When he discovers the body of a girl, he embarks on a search for the killer. Sven Bresser’s debut feature is a brooding reinvention of the crime genre. You can lose yourself in the tall reeds—or maybe find yourself.

Singin’ in the Rain

A tribute to David Stratton

12:30 pm

The Regal Theatre

A very special tribute to a man close to all our hearts, the legendary film critic and cinéaste David Stratton.

Cast Off

12:45 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

Australian Premiere.

Filmmaker Julian Wittmann embarks on a journey to find the secret of freedom with Wolfgang ‘Gangerl’ Clemens, an 80-year-old sailor who left society behind to roam the seas. A compelling, rare character study reveals freedom as both a dream and a discipline.

Sirât

12:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

In Morocco’s illicit mountain rave parties, a father and son search for a daughter and sister who has been missing for far too long. Music drives them deeper into the desert, where joy and danger share the same beat and the path offers no closure, only transformation.

2000 Meters to Andriivka

01:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Oscar-winning director Mstyslav Chernov, acclaimed for 20 Days in Mariupol (2023), shifts from civilians to soldiers in 2000 Meters to Andriivka. Drawn from helmet and body-cam footage during the 2023 counteroffensive, the film follows a platoon advancing through mined forest toward an occupied village.

Balibo

02:00 pm

The Mercury

Balibo shows Connolly’s commitment to telling urgent Australian stories. It deals with the investigation of a war crime that our government wanted forgotten. The film’s multitude of awards demonstrates the respect in which Connolly is held as a teller of inconvenient truths.

Maya, Give Me a Title

02:00 pm

Capri Theatre

Michel Gondry writes features, makes the coolest videos, and has the cutest daughter in the universe. He phones her every evening, and asks “Maya, give me a title,” then creates low-tech animations like Maya in the sea with a bottle of ketchup. Maya’s fantastic voyages will have the little ones dreaming, and the grown-ups smiling.

Journey Home, David Gulpilil

03:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Guest in attendance.

Pink Carpet.

David Dalaithngu Gulpilil’s death in 2021 was the beginning of a journey home to his birthplace Gupulul in Arnhem Land. His Bäpurru (funeral ceremony) is a celebration of law, of country, of tradition, of kinship, of ceremony. Journey Home, David Gulpilil offers a rare glimpse into the strong culture that lives on in the heart of his people.

All That's Left of You

03:00 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

A powerful and urgent family epic, All That’s Left of You spans 75 years of Palestinian history. As a mother reflects on the events that shaped her son’s defiance, Cherien Dabis delivers a gripping, politically charged portrait of loss, legacy and resilience across generations.

Deaf

03:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

When Ángela, a deaf woman, becomes a mother, the fragile equilibrium of her relationship with her hearing partner begins to unravel. Rooted in lived experience, Deaf is a luminous, deeply human portrait of maternal love, identity, and the dissonance between worlds.

Only on Earth

03:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

A holistic documentary on wildfires and wild horses. Robin Petré stares long and hard at the rhythms of social life in Spanish Galicia that revolve around the horses, living with fire, even the way kids play. If we’re going to save the earth, we need to look closely at it.

Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man

04:00 pm

Capri Theatre

Barnesy tells it straight. No varnish, no mythmaking. In Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man, the Cold Chisel frontman traces how childhood harm became adult chaos, then a hard-won recovery, laying mental health on the table with humour, frankness and zero rock star mystique.

Unwelcomed

04:15 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

Unwelcomed captures both the vast sweep of migration across mountains and deserts, and the intimate struggles of Venezuelan refugees on foot. With aerial panoramas and close testimony, it reveals a crisis of resilience, grief and hostility. Winner, Emerging International Filmmaker Award, Hot Docs 2025.

Australian Shorts

04:30 pm

The Mercury

Celebrating local emerging filmmakers, our Australian Shorts strand highlights innovative and passionate local storytelling.

Until the Sky Falls Quiet

05:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

World Premiere.

Two Sydney doctors volunteer to work in Gaza. This is the story of their time in a hell on earth. They experience frightful scenes of carnage including the deaths of many children. But they also bear witness to the resilience and generosity of many people.

Audience advice: This film contains distressing images.

Nouvelle Vague

05:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Paris, 1959. Cinephiles eagerly grasp the chance to turn themselves into directors. None would equal the impact of Godard’s Breathless. Reinvent cinema by shooting on the streets, making it up as you go along. Richard Linklater presents an irrepressible love letter to a moment where suddenly anything seemed possible.

Birthright

06:00 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

Evicted and jobless, Cory and his pregnant wife move back in with his boomer parents. What begins as uneasy dependence spirals into paranoia, as both generations confront their failures and fears. Birthright is a sharp, unsettling family satire of housing, inequality and the collapse of middle-class dreams.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

06:00 pm

The Regal Theatre

Rose Byrne is astonishing as a working mother hanging on by the barest thread in this darkly comic dramedy. Therapist Linda’s 10-year-old daughter has some mysterious illness, is being fed by tube requiring constant care. At the same time Linda’s husband is away and the house floods.

Trade Secret

06:00 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

Australian Premiere.

A calm, clear-eyed exposé of the international polar bear fur trade and the legal frameworks that allow it to flourish. Spanning six years and nine countries, Trade Secret reveals how political and commercial interests are reshaping the meaning of conservation.

Yohanna

06:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Australian Premiere.

Young Catholic nun Yohanna frantically searches for the stolen truck she has borrowed to deliver humanitarian supplies to one of Indonesia’s poorest provinces, Sumba, beautifully captured by skilled cinematography. Finding herself in a murky world of slave child labour, she is desperate to help.

Death of an Undertaker

06:30 pm

The Mercury

Guest in attendance.

A striking directorial debut from Australian actor Christian Byers (The Narrow Road to the Deep North and December Boys), Death of an Undertaker blurs the line between documentary and fiction, past and present, life and death, where cinema becomes a powerful cue to evoke the presence of absent loved ones.

My Father’s Shadow

08:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s historic 1993 election, two brothers spend a day with their estranged father in Lagos. A standout at Cannes, My Father’s Shadow is a lyrical debut that captures the fragility of family bonds with quiet poetry and an unflinching sense of truth.

The Fox

08:00 pm

The Piccadilly
Cinema 1

AFFIF Preview.

A trickster fox is let loose in the henhouse of Australian culture. Nick is an average good bloke, but when his fiancée strays, a fox promises to tame his foxy lady. An all-star cast is headed by Jai Courtney and Emily Browning, with the voices of Olivia Colman and Sam Neill.

Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua - Two Worlds

08:15 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

Pink Carpet.

As he records his first album in te reo Māori, Marlon Williams opens a gentle window into the spaces between language, identity, and sound. This observational portrait is less about fluency than feeling, capturing an artist drawn toward something deeper than words.

Guest Appearance: Marlon Williams - Saturday 25 October | One night only!

Vanilla

08:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Australian Premiere.

In late-1980s Mexico, Vanilla is a textured family drama told through the eyes of a young girl raised by seven formidable women. As debt threatens their home, she witnesses resilience, tenderness and struggle that reshape her sense of belonging and the meaning of family.

Cactus Pears

08:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

When Anand’s father dies, he returns to his family’s village to complete his filial duties. The village is another world, where homosexuality is not acknowledged. But it is also the home of Balya, with whom intimacy blossoms for Anand. A film of great simplicity and tenderness.

A Grand Mockery

09:00 pm

The Mercury

A drunken odyssey of absurdist despair, this boldly uncompromising new film by up-and-coming Brisbane filmmakers Sam Dixon and Adam C. Briggs traces the adventures of frustrated cinema worker and habitual cemetery haunter Josie. Shot on grain-ridden Super 8, A Grand Mockery carves its own singular path against national cinematic convention whilst joining a growing canon of contemporary Australian independent work that grapples with the gaping void at the heart of Australia’s colonial project.

Sunday26th October

Iron Winter

12:30 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

Guest in attendance.

For generations Mongolian herders have protected their horses from winter storms by amassing a herd and nominating young men to protect it. Now two young friends are handed the responsibility of reviving this tradition, battling the deadliest winter on record. In the Iron Winter, nothing can survive alone.

Mockbuster

12:45 pm

The Mercury

World Premiere.

Local filmmaker Anthony Firth lands a gig with The Asylum, the studio behind Sharknado. Tasked with directing a schlock film, The Land That Time Forgot, in Adelaide on a shoestring budget, he turns the camera on himself, filming a behind-the-scenes documentary. Both productions will push their director to the brink.

We Are Not Powerless

12:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

World Premiere.

In December 2012, Muzafar Ali and his wife Nagina escaped the Taliban in Afghanistan. They found themselves living in Indonesia as refugees when Australia ‘stopped the boats’. Determined to do something, they started a small two room school, which soon became the hub of a community and the most successful refugee-led initiative in the world.

Fwends

01:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Em visits Jessie in Melbourne for a weekend of laughter, and late-night truths. What begins as easy reconnection slowly shifts. Fwends is a sharply observed, gently aching study of friendship, change, and the quiet distance that grows between the people who once knew you best.

North South Man Woman

01:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

Australian Premiere.

Yujin Han, a North Korean defector turned matchmaker, runs Lovestorya in Seoul, pairing Northern women with Southern men. Shot over five years, the film tracks her clients and marriage as politics, prejudice and practicalities collide, blending candid testimony with playful storytelling to ask what love can truly negotiate.

Megadoc

02:00 pm

The Regal Theatre

It doesn’t matter if you were one of the many who hated or one of the few who loved Megalopolis, or even if you didn’t see it at all, you will be fascinated by Coppola’s Megadoc. This is a compelling look at a director driven by personal vision and creativity at the heart of his filmmaking.

Journey Home, David Gulpilil

03:00 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

David Dalaithngu Gulpilil’s death in 2021 was the beginning of a journey home to his birthplace Gupulul in Arnhem Land. His Bäpurru (funeral ceremony) is a celebration of law, of country, of tradition, of kinship, of ceremony. Journey Home, David Gulpilil offers a rare glimpse into the strong culture that lives on in the heart of his people.

The Land That Time Forgot

03:00 pm

The Mercury

Australian Premiere.

The Asylum’s The Land That Time Forgot unleashes submarines, raptors and pulp spectacle in suburban Adelaide. Directed for the cult studio by Adelaide’s Anthony Frith, the film is also immortalised in his documentary Mockbuster, also premiering at AFF.

It Was Just an Accident

03:15 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Despite bans and imprisonment, Iranian master filmmaker Jafar Panahi continues to make great humanist films. In the middle of the night a damaged car arrives at mechanic Vahid’s garage. He hears something that triggers him to believe that the driver of the car is the official who had tortured him. But as he never saw his face, can he really be sure?

Sanatorium

03:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

In an ex-Soviet wellness resort on Odesa’s shore, patients and staff pursue cures, companionship and small joys as war murmurs nearby. Sanatorium observes one summer of mud baths, electro therapies and karaoke with bright, ironic wit, revealing how ordinary rituals keep dignity, desire and community intact.

Drunken Noodles

03:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

Art student Adnan has moved to New York City, where he is house-sitting in his uncle’s apartment and undertaking an internship at a local gallery. With food delivery and sex both readily available via app, Adnan enters an erotic world of late-night encounters, delivered with the lightness of a lazy summer afternoon sliding into evening.

No Other Choice

04:15 pm

The Regal Theatre

Australian Premiere.

After 25 years, You Man-su loses his well-paying paper industry job. Suddenly looming is the loss of his beautiful family home in the forest. Man-su hatches a ruthless scheme to be the only real employment contender in his field. A black comedy on the economic anxiety haunting our times.

Victoria

05:00 pm

Odeon Star Semaphore
Cinema 1

Australian Premiere.

Victoria, a young beautician working in a suburban beauty parlour, has decided to elope with her Hindu boyfriend against her conservative Catholic parents’ ruling. Amid a never-ending roster of customers and teary phone calls to her unhelpful boyfriend, Victoria reflects on her situation while grappling with conflicting emotions.

The President’s Cake

05:30 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Eximax

Iraq, 1990. In a school lottery, nine-year-old Lamia is chosen to bake Saddam Hussein’s birthday cake. With her grandmother, she travels through marshlands and markets for scarce ingredients. The President’s Cake is a grounded, lyrical portrait of resilience and irony, seen through the eyes of a child facing an absurd demand.

Two Prosecutors

05:45 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 4

When a prosecutor investigates allegations made by a prisoner in a Stalinist prison, the pursuit of justice becomes a dangerous journey into the heart of a system devouring its own. There is absurd humour in Stalinist administration, but tyranny is always both banal and malevolent.

Our Hero, Balthazar

06:00 pm

Palace Nova Eastend
Cinema 8

A privileged, performative teen becomes convinced an online troll is a school shooter and drives across the country to confront him. Our Hero, Balthazar is a jet-black satire of performative activism, fragile masculinity, and the hunger for attention in Gen Z culture.

Wolfram

Closing Night Gala

06:00 pm

Capri Theatre

AFFIF Exclusive.

Guest in attendance.

Pink Carpet.

Warwick Thornton’s Wolfram unfolds in 1932 Central Australia, marking the follow up to his acclaimed Sweet Country (AFF 2017). Aboriginal children are forced into wolfram (tungsten) mining until violence entangles them with ruthless outlaws. At the heart of the story is Pansy, longing for her stolen children in a tightly wrought western of reckoning.
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