The Adelaide Independent Film Festival (AIFF) is an annual celebration of short films presented at the Capri Theatre (141 Goodwood Rd Goodwood) and The Mercury (13 Morphett St, Adelaide). This year’s festival brings together a showcase of local, national and international filmmaking talent, with an evening of short films at the Capri Theatre followed by an industry focused day of talks and discussions at The Mercury.
The AIFF attracts filmmakers from across Australia each year, including Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. Previous short films featured at the festival have premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival, the Sydney Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival, among other prestigious film festivals. The AIFF also features films from renowned film schools, including the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS).
The festival’s eighteen awards, spanning South Australian dedicated categories and film craft honours, reflect the depth and quality of work being created both here in South Australia and further afield.
This year’s program includes:
Chrysalis – Directed by Rachel Macindoe Baker. A recluse obsessed with preservation is forced to choose between the past or embracing an uncertain future.
Enmeshed – Directed and written by Corban Bruce. When a teenager is kidnapped by his delusional mother, who believes his teachers are abusing him, he plays along with her desperate plan to protect him, until a chance to escape forces him to confront the terrifying reality of what she’s become.
Fight Like A Girl – Directed by Kiaya Hessler. Three women, three journeys, one unbreakable spirit. Fight Like a Girl captures the raw emotion of survival beyond breast cancer, where fear and courage intertwine, and the quiet power of resilience redefines what it means to fight.
Half Past Midnight – Directed by Daniel Bibby. A chance encounter outside a movie theatre forces two strangers to confront their romantic pasts.
I’ve Never Seen A Straight Banana – Directed by Marco Noé. In the twilight of vaudeville, Effie Fellows scandalised and delighted audiences as a “boy impersonator” refusing to be contained by her era. Fifty years after her death, Geoffoire, the young man who once shared her family home, is finally ready to follow her lead.
If/When – Directed by Courtney Westbrook. When time-traveller Ollie glimpses a future without Az, they must defy the flow of their reality, risking everything to rewrite fate and hold onto love, if and when they can, before time tears them apart, forever.
Like Friend, Like Deer – Directed by Malek Eghbali. After killing an illegal hunter in self-defence, a wildlife ranger is forced to confront the blurred line between protector and predator, revealing the unsettling parallels between humans, animals, and the wilderness they inhabit.
Not In The Mood – Directed by Cameron Tyler. After a long day at work, a man’s plans for a quiet evening unravel when his neighbor’s blaring music pushes him into an increasingly absurd battle to reclaim his peace.
Phone Wallet Keys Door – Directed by Rubina Smith. In a Melbourne sharehouse, everyone has forgotten something in the pre-party getting-ready chaos. Some things are just more important than others. A one-shot, one-hallway short for the friends who drive you up the wall.
Print-Friendly – Directed by Mitchell Netes. A granddaughter’s grief turns to confrontation when a revelation during her grandfather’s funeral forces her to question everything she believed about her family.
Reliefs – Directed by Juan Manuel González. As a middle-aged man struggles to escape a life stalled by despair, his chronically ill mother proposes an unimaginable sacrifice that forces them both to confront the true meaning of love, hope, and release.
Run Koala Run – Directed by James Calvert. When an unseen animator begins rewriting his hand-drawn world, a lovable cartoon koala must outrun a reality that is literally changing around him in a frantic chase through the collision of art and algorithm.
Shadow Of Hope – Directed by Mitchell Nielsen. Far from home, a young Burmese man struggles to escape the weight of a brutal and unforgiving military coup, threatening both his nation’s freedom and its very survival. Now, in Australia and unable to return home, he’s doing everything he can to stay connected to his people.
Stone Memory – Directed by Wolf Lass. A forgotten WWII monument, reclaimed by silence and nature, becomes the gateway to a hidden landscape of memorials scattered across former Yugoslavia.
The Cranker – A Bar On Borrowed Time – Directed by Lyra Noblet. A short documentary following the story of a local pub in Adelaide facing threats of demolition.
The Wedding Day – Directed by Mary-Agnes O’Loughlin. It’s September 6th, 1973, and a young man is late to his own wedding. When he finally arrives, nothing else matters. He is there. The ceremony goes ahead. But as the afternoon unfolds, so does the truth.
Ya Hanouni – Directed by Lyna Tadount, Sofian Chouaib. While the Mum and the Dad try to put their baby to sleep, a competition arises between them: who will manage to get the baby to say the first word?
More information about The Adelaide Independent Film Festival is available here:
Ticket details are available here:
https://events.humanitix.com/2026-adelaide-independent-film-festival
