The Adelaide Film Festival (AFF, 23 October–3 November) has announced its full 2024 program.

Announcing the program, Mat Kesting, AFF CEO & Creative Director, said: ‘Cinema brings people together for a chance to meet and reflect on where humanity and the world is at, and AFF 2024 offers a selection of extraordinary films that reflect the interesting times in which we live. With over 110 films from more than 40 countries, AFF 2024 aims to inform, provoke and entertain.’

To be precise, this year’s AFF program includes 112 films from 46 countries, with 15 World Premieres and 34 Australian Premieres.

These include eight new Australian feature projects supported by the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund (AFFIF), including five films directed by women and four directorial debuts: animated space comedy Lesbian Space Princess (directed by Leela Varghese & Emma Hough Hobbs); Make It Look Real (directed by Kate Blackmore); One Mind, One Heart (directed by Larissa Behrendt); Songs Inside (directed by Shalom Almond); We Bury The Dead (Zak Hilditch’s anticipated follow-up to These Final Hours) and With or Without You (Kelly Schilling).

ScreenHub: Adelaide Film Festival – first six films announced

Sophie Hyde and Don McAlpine

A number of Adelaide Film Festival highlights have previously been announced, including Opening Night film The Correspondent, directed by Kriv Stenders and starring Richard Roxburgh; the gala screening of Emilia Pérez, from Palme d’Or winning director Jacques Audiard and Steve McQueen’s Blitz.

Key announcements made today include all the films in competition for the Feature Fiction and Documentary awards, along with the naming of a new Festival Patron, renowned South Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, 52 Sundays).

The recipient of the 2024 Don Dunstan Award has also revealed as legendary cinematographer and filmmaker Don McAlpine, known globally for his work in over 50 films, including Romeo + Juliet (1996), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Peter Pan (2003) and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). McAlpine will be in conversation with Hyde at the festival.

Adelaide Film Festival 2024: Closing Night Film – Kangaroo Island

Newly revealed titles include the World Premiere and Closing Night film, Kangaroo Island, directed by South Australia’s Timothy David and written by Sally Gifford.

Produced by David along with Bettina Hamilton, Peter Hanlon and Daniel M Rosenberg, Kangaroo Island is a drama that stars Rebecca Breeds (Clarice), Adelaide Clemens, Erik Thomson and Joel Jackson. It follows a struggling Hollywood actress who returns home to ruggedly beautiful island where she confronts the love triangle that tore her family apart.

AFF 2024: Feature Film Competition and Jury

Established in 2007, the Feature Fiction Competition values ‘bold storytelling, creative risk-taking with a preference for early career directors with idiosyncratic and diverse voices.’ The five films competing in 2024 are:

• Good One, US filmmaker India Donaldson’s thoughtful and quietly confident portrait of the universal moment when the parental bond is forever broken.
• The Australian premiere of Ink Wash, from Romanian director Sarra Tsorakidis, about an artist facing a dark night of the soul.
• In The Belly of the Tiger, a poignant allegorical critique of capitalism from director Jatla Siddartha, part of India’s burgeoning arthouse movement.
• Dutch director Peter Hoogendoorn’s Three Days of Fish, an intimate snapshot of male vulnerability which captured attention at the recent Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
• The haunting and highly original ghost story Went Up the Hill from Australian director Samuel Van Grinsven, starring Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) and Vicky Krieps (The Dead Don’t Hurt, Corsage). Went Up the Hill is Van Grinsven’s follow-up feature to the acclaimed Sequin in a Blue Room.

This year’s Jury is Claudia Rodríguez Valencia, Leena Khobragade, Matthew Bate, Penny Smallacombe, and film journalist and critic (and ScreenHub regular) Stephen A Russell.

AFF Documentary Award

The five films competing for the 2024 AFF Documentary Award are:

• Australian film Aquarius, directed by Wendy Champagne, a revelatory chronicle of the 1973 Aquarius Festival in Nimbin.
• The Australian premiere of Homegrown, directed by Michael Premo, about three alt-right men post Trump’s 2020 defeat.
• I’m Not Everything I Want to Be (Director: Klára Tasovská) about the fascinating life of Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková.
• Directors Pier-Luc Latulippe and Martin Fournier’s Simon and Marianne, about a couple’s final journey through terminal illness, love, and loss.
• The Wolves Always Come at Night, directed by Gabrielle Brady, a hybrid film which uses observational documentary with scenes re-enacted and co-written with the Mongolian protagonists to create an intimate portrayal of the effects of climate change, not only on livelihoods, but also on dreams.

Spotlight on India

This year’s AFF Country Spotlight focuses on India with films to be screened including All We Imagine as Light, the first Indian film in competition at Cannes in 30 years – where it won the Grand Prix. The film was also the first entry by an Indian woman director, Payal Kapadia.  

Other Indian films in the AFF program include the Australian premiere of Boong, directed by Lakshmipriya Devi, Anirban Dutta’s Sundance-winning Nocturnes, which takes audiences into the world of Himalayan moths, Subhadra Mahajan’s Second Chance, about a heartbroken girl who retreats to her family’s summer home in the mountains to heal.

The director of the AFF Feature Film Competition selection, In the Belly of the Tiger, Jatla Siddartha, from India, will also be a guest at the festival.

Visual Arts plus AFF

Visual artist Archie Moore’s new AFF & Samstag commissioned moving image work, the fifth iteration of his installation series Dwelling will be on show.

There’s also the announcement of the 2024 Bettison & James Award, awarded tonight to Angela Valamanesh, an independent visual artist based in Adelaide for over forty years.

The full program for the 2024 Adelaide Film Festival (23 October–3 November) is available here.