AFF 2025

Adelaide Film Festival 15 – 26 Oct 2025

Cinema lovers once again flocked to Adelaide screens in October for Adelaide Film Festival 2025. In its 22nd edition, the festival featured over 120 films, with 23 World Premieres and 38 Australian Premieres.

AFF 2025 kicked off with the Australian premiere of Jimpa, from acclaimed local director Sophie Hyde, with cast and crew in attendance at our Opening Night Gala. Over 12 days, AFF also saw a thumping, rave themed Friday Night Party following the South Australian premiere of Sirāt, and pink carpet premieres of AFFIF titles including Lynette Wallworth’s Edge of Life, Anthony Frith’s Mockbuster, Mia’Kate Russell’s first feature Penny Lane is Dead, We Are Not Powerless directed by Jolyon Hoff and Pauline Clague’s The Colleano Heart. Audiences were also treated to two AFFIF exclusive preview titles: Wolfram, Warwick Thornton’s sequel to Sweet Country (AFFIF 2017), and Dario Russo’s debut feature, The Fox.

Our Official Competitions presented a varied snapshot of the most distinctive features of 2025. The jury (Jub Clerc, John Sheedy, Pavel Cortés, Marion Pilowsky and Murray Bartlett) awarded the Feature Fiction prize to Vanilla, directed by Mayra Hermosillo. Other films in competition were A Useful Ghost (Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke), Perla (Alexandra Makarová), Phantoms of July (Julian Radlmaier) and Reedland (Sven Bresser). The Documentary Feature Competition was won by She, directed by Parsifal Reparato. Other films in competition were: Cast Off (Julian Wittman), North South Man Woman (Christina Sun Kim, Morten Traavik), Sanatorium (Gar O’Rourke) and The Tale of Silyan (Tamara Kotevska).

For the second year in a row, the Change Award and Shorts Award were presided over by juries. The Change Award jury, comprising three leaders in factual filmmaking and activism, Natasha Gadd, Katrina Lucas and Adelaide Xerri, awarded the prize to Trade Secret, directed by Abraham Joffe. Other films in competition were: Black Water (Natxo Leuza), Only on Earth (Robin Petré), Power Station (Dan Edelstyn, Hilary Powell) and Until the Sky Falls Quiet (Erica Yen-Chin Long, Jason Korr). Leading members of the local screen industry, Manda Flett, Isaac Coen Lindsay and Matt Vesely made up the Shorts Jury. They awarded the top prize to The Eating of an Orange, directed by May Kindred-Boothby, with a special mention to God Is Shy directed by Jocelyn Charles. Other shorts in competition were: Automagic (Ashok Vish), My Wonderful Life, (Calleen Koh), Guttercat (Aubrey Winslow) and Norheimsund (Ana A. Alpizar).

Our Special Presentations section once again showcased some of the biggest titles of the year. In 2025, these were Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, Rental Family, starring Brendan Fraser, and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, the highly anticipated Bruce Springsteen biopic starring Jeremy Allen White. A selection of late announcements also brough Adelaide audiences some of the buzziest titles from TIFF and Venice: Park Chan-Wook’s No Other Choice, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia and Mike Figgis’ Megadoc.

Our Country Spotlight took us to Mexico, showcasing the nation’s varied filmmaking talent, including Feature Fiction Competition winner, Vanilla, Victoria Franco’s debut film, Twelve Moons, journalism thriller Crocodiles and Aria Covamonas’ The Great History of Western Philosophy.

AFF is proud to champion first time directors, and the 2025 festival was no different. Debut features in the program included (but were not limited to) Zoe Pepper’s Birthright, Sivaranjini J.’s Victoria, Christian Byers’ Death of an Undertaker and Camera d’Or winner The President’s Cake, directed by Hasan Hadi.

The ever-popular Screen Conversations program saw invigorating discussions on film financing, distribution, bold first features, horror filmmaking, acting, and more. We were proud to showcase two special in-conversation sessions with Don Dunstan Award winner Robert Connolly and Bettison & James Award winner Richard Leplastier.

Find all the 2025 event photos here.

The Program

“The Horror … The Horror”

2000 Meters to Andriivka

5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!!

7 Minutes to Rice

A Grand Mockery

A Useful Ghost

Abortion Party

AFF Festival Bridges: Connecting WIP to the International Markets

AFF Youth Gala

AFF Youth: Becoming Filmmakers

All That's Left of You

Alpha Test

Animated Shorts

As If the Earth Had Swallowed Them Up

Australian Shorts

Automagic

Balconada

Balibo

Birthright

Black Water

Blue Moon

Blue Road - The Edna O'Brien Story

Boyish

Bring Her Back

Bugonia

Cactus Pears

Caries

Cast Off

Catchin' Mumoo

ChaO

Crabs in the Air

Crocodiles

Dead Dog

Deaf

Death of an Undertaker

Deep Dive into Distribution

Deluge

Diabolic

Don Dunstan Award: Robert Connolly in Conversation

Drunken Noodles

Eagles of the Republic

Edge of Life

Emile is Missing

Faceless

Fear of Songs

First Nations Shorts

Fortune Favours the Bold

Frankenstein

From Life to Screen: Re-Presenting First Nations Stories

Fwends

Ghost Elephants

God Is Shy

Guts

Guttercat

I'm Not Sure

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Interview with a Hero

Into the Earth

Iron Winter

It Was Just an Accident

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley

Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man

Jimpa

Jimpa and the Secret Art of Acting

Journey Home, David Gulpilil

Koki, Ciao

Ladies Night

Liability

Lie Down, Breathe Out

Mad Max and the Genius of George Miller

Made in SA

Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua - Two Worlds

Mates

Maya, Give Me a Title

Megadoc

Mockbuster

My Father’s Shadow

My Wonderful Life

Nervous Energy

No Other Choice

Norheimsund

North South Man Woman

Nouvelle Vague

Only on Earth

Orwell: 2+2=5

Our Hero, Balthazar

Paradise Man (ii)

Penny Lane Is Dead

Perla

Phantoms of July

Plainclothes

Power Station

Queer Shorts

Reedland

Rental Family

Resurrection

Richard Leplastrier: Framing the View

Road At The End Of The World

Sammi, Who Can Detach His Body Parts

Sanatorium

Screen Industry Talk: No Money, No Film

Second Chance

She

Silvesterchlausen

Singin’ in the Rain

Sirât

Some Kind of Blue

Speak.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

The Body

The Book of Sijjin and Illiyyin

The Colleano Heart

The Demands of Documentary

The Eating of an Orange

The Fling

The Fox

The Gods (الالهة)

The Great History of Western Philosophy

The Guardian of Stories

The Knight

The Land That Time Forgot

The Mastermind

The Men's Land

The Mysterious Maiden of Montefiores

The President’s Cake

The Run

The Secret

The Secret Agent

The Shirt Off Your Back

The Square

The Tale of Silyan

The Weed Eaters

Trade Secret

Tunnel Vision

Twelve Moons

Two Prosecutors

Until the Sky Falls Quiet

Unwelcomed

Vanilla

Victoria

We Are Not Powerless

Wild Nights, Tamed Beasts

Wolfram

World Shorts

Yohanna