Tag: 2025 Adelaide Film Festival
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Adelaide Film Festival review: Journey Home, David Gulpilil
In November 2021, Yolŋu man and lauded actor David Gulpilil died of a lung cancer that had plagued him for four long years. Unable to travel to his birthplace Gupulul in Arnhem Land while still alive, he stayed in Murray Bridge, South Australia, to have the medical support he needed, but his dying wish was…
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Adelaide Film Festival review: Maya, Give Me a Title
A quirky celebration of childlike wonder, Maya Give Me a Title is a charming, stop-motion adventure, dedicated to creativity and connection. Directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and made in collaboration with his daughter, Maya, this French-made animated feature transforms a simple father-daughter ritual into a playful, heartfelt cinematic experiment, one…
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Adelaide Film Festival review: North South Man Woman
Despite their geographical closeness, the cultural divide between North and South Korea is extreme. Directed by Morten Traavik and Christina Sun Kim, North South Man Woman explores this divide through marriages arranged across the Korean demilitarised zone. Filmed over a period of five years, we follow Yujin, the owner of a matchmaking company for North…
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Adelaide Film Festival review: Made in SA showcase
Think globally, watch locally! If you’re going to see one thing at the Adelaide Film Fest, make it Made in SA. Arguably the most important screening of the Adelaide Film Festival is Made in SA, where local filmmakers showcase their shorts. These are the state’s up-and-comers, and their stories are our stories. Featuring eight films…
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Adelaide Film Festival review: Cactus Pears
Rohan Kanawade’s feature directorial debut, Cactus Pears (Sabar Bonda), first made waves at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded the prestigious World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic. The film has since continued capturing hearts around the world. Cactus Pears observes Anand (Bhushaan Manoj), a Mumbai call-centre worker who returns to the West…
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Adelaide Film Festival review: She
The world runs on the labour of women, the hands that feed, provide and package our modern-day privileges. She (2025), directed by Italian filmmaker and anthropologist Parsifal Reparato, uses several documentary styles to tell this story including observation, interviews and stylised re-creations. She focuses on a Vietnamese electronic factory in the Bac Ninh province, and…
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‘We went on this dig together’: Historical tightrope act to reclaim the Colleano Heart
Note: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the names and images of, and references to, deceased persons. The Colleano Heart is the kind of documentary that makes you want to re-watch it straightaway. Filled with emotion, mystery, adventure and a timeline spanning colonisation to the present day, it’s a…
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Adelaide Film Festival review: Jimpa
Goodwood’s Capri Theatre may not have drink holders attached to its seats like many modern multiplexes, but it does have an organ that rises from the pit of the stage floor, and someone to play for the audience as they crowd into their seats. It’s a nice way to open the Adelaide Film Festival, and…
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Adelaide Film Festival premiere: Sophie Hyde on Jimpa, queer families, and Olivia Colman
When Sophie Hyde’s father Jim died in 2018, the director was left pondering what might have been. Her father had come out when she was a child, and like many LGBTQIA+ people eventually left Adelaide and their family for the more cosmopolitan outlook of the eastern states. Back in Adelaide, Sophie’s own child, Aud Mason-Hyde,…
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See what’s new: This year’s premieres at Adelaide Film Festival
Fwends Sophie Somerville’s Fwends is a breezy, quietly resonant debut that captures the tension between closeness and drift with remarkable clarity. It follows Em (Emmanuelle Mattana), a Sydney-based lawyer grappling with workplace burnout, who travels to Melbourne for a weekend with Jessie (Melissa Gan), her childhood friend who is navigating a heartbreak. Their easy rapport,…