Adelaide Film Festival

Adelaide Film Festival

Also known as: AFF
📝 Sign up as a festival representative to manage this page!

Adelaide Film Festival (AFF) takes place each October in Adelaide, South Australia, screening Australian and international feature films, documentaries, series and short films together with talks, special events and moving image works. First held in 2003, it was the first Australian film festival to establish its own investment fund: the AFF Investment Fund provides equity finance for Australian screen productions that premiere at the festival and has supported more than 150 projects, among them Ten Canoes, Samson and Delilah, Snowtown, Hotel Mumbai and Talk to Me.

Juries award prizes for feature fiction, feature documentary and short film, as well as the Change Award for a feature with positive social or environmental impact; festival audiences vote for three Audience Awards. The festival also presents the Don Dunstan Award for an outstanding contribution to Australian screen culture and runs the AFF Youth programme and the AFF Expand Lab for filmmakers and artists. The 2026 edition takes place 14–25 October 2026.

Country

Australia

Categories

Documentary, Feature, Short, Television

Awards and prizes

Juried competition awards: AFF Feature Fiction Award (AUD 10,000), AFF Feature Documentary Award (AUD 10,000), AFF Change Award (AUD 5,000) for a feature film with positive social or environmental impact, AFF Short Film Award (AUD 3,000). Audience Awards: three awards voted by festival audiences, for feature fiction, documentary and short film; all films in the festival are eligible. The Don Dunstan Award, presented by the festival board, recognises an outstanding contribution to Australian screen culture.

Festival rules

The festival accepts feature fiction, feature documentary, series (single or multiple episodes) and short films (drama, documentary, hybrid, experimental and animation) made in Australia or internationally, of any genre or length. Films under 40 minutes are considered short films. Educational, scientific, training or promotional works, music videos and VR works are not accepted. Films must have been completed within the 12 months before the festival. They must not have been broadcast, streamed, or publicly screened in South Australia, or made commercially available online in Australia, before the festival. Non-English language films must be subtitled in English. Works in progress may be submitted only with prior approval from the programming team and must be at picture lock. Submissions are made through FilmFreeway as a direct upload or a private Vimeo link; an entry fee applies and late submissions are not accepted. Selected feature films screen from DCP.

Contacts

✏️ Edit this page!