World premieres, cult discoveries, big-name stars and nights out: Adelaide Film Festival is back
Adelaide Film Festival returns this October, bringing great cinema and the people who love it together across the city.
If your idea of a good night out involves seeing something you haven’t seen before, discovering a new favourite film and chatting about it with friends afterwards – with a party vibe thrown in – then Adelaide Film Festival is calling.
While cinema is at the heart of AFF, the festival experience doesn’t have to end when the credits roll.
This year’s AFF slogan All For Film celebrates everything that makes going to the movies such a good time – the anticipation, the shared laughs and gasps, the conversations and events afterwards and the feeling of being part of something happening across the city.And yes, there are films. Lots of them.
Your October plans, sorted
Let’s start with the big ones.
The Opening Night Gala brings the Australian Premiere of Wild Horse Nine, the latest from director Martin McDonagh, with a cast that includes Sam Rockwell, John Malkovich, Parker Posey and Steve Buscemi.
Basically, a pretty solid excuse to get dressed up and head to the movies.
And because it’s a gala, the night doesn’t end when the lights come up. Opening Night is part of the wider AFF experience, where the film, the crowd and the celebrations come together.
Then there’s the Saturday Night Party, which takes the shared cinema experience somewhere considerably more fun.
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First, you’ll catch riotous French animated comedy Jim Queen, directed by Marco Nguyen and Nicolas Athanè, at Palace Nova Eastend. Then, rather than heading home when the credits roll, you’ll head to Cinema Place for drinks, canapes, tunes and dancing.
Presented by AFF in partnership with Feast Festival, it’s cinema with a side of Saturday-night energy.
And when it’s time to wrap things up, the Closing Night Gala will host the World Premiere of Hell Has No Fire Escape, directed by Georgina Savage and supported by the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund.
The plot? An evangelical rehab, an online romance with a fake Jason Momoa and a woman whose desires begin to collide with her ministry.
We’re listening.
Like Opening Night, the Closing Night Gala brings the festival to a celebratory finish – giving audiences another chance to come together around a big-screen experience before the credits roll on AFF 2026.
Find your next obsession
The best thing about a film festival is that you can’t always predict what you’re going to love.
AFF is packed with the kind of films you might not stumble across on your usual streaming rotation – including Australian Premieres Agata the Writer and The Forbidden Aunt, plus World Premieres Kumarangk: Sacred Women’s Business and Aftermath.
And there are plenty of picks that should be right up the alley of younger audiences looking for something a little different.
Titanic Ocean takes you inside a Japanese boarding school for mermaids, while Low Expectations sees Norwegian indie-pop artist girl in red make her acting debut.
Then there’s Everytime, a hypnotic Cannes winner boasting a 100 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Still hungry for more? I See Building Fall Like Lightning offers a bruising portrait of Millennial Britain, while The Best Summer heads backstage at the 1995 Australian alt-rock festival Summersault.
There are also AFF Investment Fund films, special screenings and Festival-only experiences, giving audiences the chance to see new work before it becomes everyone else’s new favourite thing.
In other words: excellent ammunition for “I saw it first” energy.
Made here, watched here
For all its international flavour, AFF is also unmistakably Adelaide.
The Made in SA shorts program shines a light on local screen talent, with Maddie Parry’s Delia and Wombat Workshop’s Bryce Kraehenbuehl’s Wet Feathers both screening as part of the program.
Adelaide Film Collective Movie Juice is also joining the festival for a night of wonderfully strange, apocryphal cinema featuring Chronovisor – one of the more intriguing films making waves internationally.
It’s another reminder that you don’t necessarily have to travel far to discover something new.
Come for the film, stay for the fun
This is where AFF’s “All For Film” idea really comes into its own.
You don’t need to be able to hold your own in a conversation about the French New Wave. You don’t even need to know exactly what you’re looking for.
You can come because your friend dragged you along. Because you want a different kind of date night. Because you’re curious about a film. Because you fancy a party. Or simply because Adelaide feels more fun when there’s something happening.
A bunch of strangers walks into a cinema. For a couple of hours, they become an audience – laughing, gasping, getting swept up in the same story. Then they spill out onto the streets, compare notes, grab a drink and move on to whatever comes next.
That’s the Adelaide Film Festival.
The revamped AFF Membership and AFF App make it easy to build your own itinerary, too – browse the program, save films to your wishlist, book tickets and keep them ready to scan when you arrive.
You don’t have to be a film expert. You just have to be up for a good night out and some great cinema.
Explore the program and grab your tickets here.
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