This year we’re looking forward to a bunch of Australian films coming through the pipeline to cinemas. There are family-friendly films like Magic Beach and Kangaroo, as well as serious prison movies Inside and The Correspondent, and the comic prison caper, Spit, starring David Wenham.

Also on the agenda are films that take us inside the Australian Indian diaspora, starting with Hindi Vindi and Sahela.

Down the track and still undated, we’re hoping to catch Zak Hilditch’s zombie thriller We Bury the Dead, Sophie Hyde’s complicated family drama Jimpa, Nicolas Cage on Australian shores in The Surfer – and a whole lot more.

Magic Beach (16 January)

MAGIC BEACH
Animated family feature
Director: Robert Connolly
Producer: Robert Connolly
Animators: Susan Danta, Pierce Davison, Jake Duczynski, Emma Kelly, Anthony Lucas, Simon Rippingale, Marieka Walsh, Eddie White, Lee Whitmore, Kathy Sarpi
Distributor: Madman

Synopsis: Alison Lester’s much-loved illustrated children’s book Magic Beach is reimagined for the screen through a unique mix of live action entwined with extraordinary animated stories from ten leading Australian animators.

The hook that hooked us: This book is an Aussie kid’s classic and the familiar illustrations are brought to fresh life in the trailer.

Hindi Vindi (27 February)

HINDI VINDI
Drama musical
Director: Ali Sayed
Writer: Jay Sharma and Ali Sayed
Producer: Aniket Deshkar, Jay Sharma, Anil Sharma and Sunny Shah
Country: Australia/India
Cast: Mihir Ahujan, Neena Gupta, Guy Sebastian
Distributor: The Backlot Films

Synopsis: Hindi Vindi tells the story of Kabir (played by rising Bollywood star Mihir Ahuja), a teenage musician on a journey of self-discovery as he races against time to create a song in a language he doesn’t speak.

Kabir is conflicted about his cultural identity and struggles with a language barrier when his Indian grandmother (Neena Gupta) comes to live with him in Sydney. The relationship between the two is strained but where words fail, music speaks.

By bonding over music, Kabir discovers a new found appreciation for his family, the Hindi language and connection to his Indian heritage. 

The hook that hooked us: Guy Sebastian plays the dad, plus Bollywood meets Sydney.

Inside (27 February)

INSIDE
Crime drama thriller
Director & Writer: Charles Williams
Producers: Marion Macgowan, Kate Glover
Cast: Guy Pearce, Vincent Miller, Cosmo Jarvis, Toby Wallace, Chloé Hayden, Michael Logo
Country: Australia
Distributor: Bonsai

Synopsis: After being transferred from juvenile to adult prison, Mel Blight (Vincent Miller) is taken under the wing of both Mark Shepard (Cosmo Jarvis), Australia’s most despised criminal, and Warren Murfett (Guy Pearce), a soon-to-be-a-paroled inmate. As a paternal triangle grows between them, we see that even the worst of men have a little bit of good inside that will be their undoing.

The hook that hooked us: Williams is an assured and award-winning short filmmaker and his debut feature comes with glowing praise, including from ScreenHub’s Stephen A. Russell who gave it four and a half stars reviewing the premiere at MIFF 2024.

ScreenHub: Inside, MIFF film review: an Australian prison movie poised on perfection

Spit (6 March)

SPIT
Comedy crime drama
Director: Jonathan Teplitzky
Writer: Chris Nyst
Producers: Trish Lake, Greg Duffy, Felicity McVay and David Wenham
Cast: David Wenham, Helen Thomson, Gary Sweet, David Roberts, David Field, Arlo Green, Pallavi Sharda, Ayik Chut, Sam and Teagan Rybka (The Rybka Twins), Sofya Gollan, Bob Franklin, Lewis Fitz-Gerald and Sami Afuni
Distributor: Transmission

Synopsis: After 20 years on the run overseas, small-time ex-criminal Johnny Spitieri (Spit) slips back into Australia on a false passport only to find himself locked up in an Immigration Detention Centre with a massive target on his back as old enemies come looking for him, determined to settle old scores. As he struggles to stay one step ahead, the resourceful Spit finds new friends in detention, teaching them his version of mateship, and what it means to be truly Australian.

The hook that hooked us: David Wenham going full bogan in a crime caper that picks up from Gettin’ Square (2003).

Sahela (20 March)

SAHELA (also known as Companion)
Drama
Director: Raghuvir Joshi
Writers: Atika Chohan, Raghuvir Joshi, Tayyab Madni
Cast: Antonio Aakeel, Anula Navlekar, Harish Patel, Sheeba Chaddha

Synopsis: In Paramatta, Sydney, newlyweds Vir and Nitya have been happily married for a year. Their relationship is tested when Vir uncovers a personal truth. Also known as Companion,

The hook that hooked us: An Indian-Australian coming-out story is something we haven’t seen before. Also, FilmInk called Sahela a ‘quiet triumph of honest, emotional filmmaking’.

The Correspondent (17 April)

THE CORRESPONDENT
Political drama thriller
Director: Kriv Stenders
Writer: Peter Duncan
Producer: Carmel Travers
Cast: Richard Roxburgh, Julian Maroun, Rahel Romahn, Yael Stone, Nic Cassim, Mojean Aria, Fayssal Bazzi, Majid Shoker, Josh McConville, Hazem Shammas
Distributor: Maslow Entertainment

Synopsis: Xmas Eve, 2014, in the shadow of the Great Pyramids of Egypt and Australian journalist, Peter Greste, is reporting from this most dangerous city on earth where bloody daily clashes between student revolutionaries and the government take place. No-one is safe.

What Peter Greste doesn’t know on that first night as he files his news across the globe is that he is the target and within a few hours he would be arrested, strip searched, despatched to a dungeon and accused of multiple crimes of terrorism, each one of which carried the death penalty.

Welcome to Cairo.

The hook that hooked us: The true story of imprisoned Australian journalist Peter Greste looks tense.

Australian Films: release dates to be confirmed

Kangaroo

KANGAROO
Family drama
Director: Kate Woods
Writer: Harry Cripps,
Producers: David Jowsey, Greer Simpkin, Rachel Clements, Trisha Morton-Thomas, Angela Littlejohn.
Stars: Ryan Corr, Rachel House, Lily Whiteley, Deborah Mailman, Wayne Blair, Trisha Morton-Thomas, Brooke Satchwell, Ernie Dingo, Roy Billing, Genevieve Lemon
Distributor: StudioCanal

Synopsis: A heart-warming family comedy about disgraced TV Host, Chris, and a young indigenous girl, Charlie, who work together to rescue and rehabilitate a group of orphaned joeys in a remote Outback community. Kangaroo is inspired by the life of Chris ‘Brolga’ Barns, founder of The Kangaroo Sanctuary in Alice Springs.

The hook that hooked us: Baby kangaroos, Alice Springs, and a true-ish story from ‘the studio that brought us Paddington’.

The Surfer

THE SURFER
Director: Lorcan Finnegan
Producer: Robert Connolly, James Grandison, Brunella Cocchiglia, Nathan Klingher, Leonora Darby
Country: Australia/Ireland
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Nicholas Cassim, Miranda Tapsell
Distributor: Madman

Synopsis: When a man returns to Australia to buy back his family home after many years in the US, he is humiliated in front of his teenage son by a group of local surfers who claim ownership over the secluded beach of his childhood.

Wounded, he defies them and remains at the beach, demanding acceptance. As the conflict escalates, he is brought right to the edge of his sanity and his entire identity is thrown into question. Watch the trailer.

The hook that hooked us: Nicolas Cage.

Jimpa

JIMPA
Drama
Director: Sophie Hyde
Writers: Matthew Cormack and Sophie Hyde
Producers: Sophie Hyde, Liam Heyen, Marleen Slot, Bryan Mason, Cyna Strachan.
Cast: Olivia Colman, John Lithgow, Aud Mason Hyde, Daniel Henshall, Kate Box, Eamon Farren,
Cody Fern, Cobham-Hervey, Deborah Kennedy
Distributor: Kismet Films

Synopsis: Hannah and her non-binary teenager Frances visits her gay grandfather Jimpa in Amsterdam. Frances expresses a desire to stay with her grandfather for a year, challenging Hannah’s parenting beliefs and forcing her to confront past issues.

The hook that hooked us: Writer-director Sophie Hyde’s work is always personal, genre-defying and interesting. Also, we’ll watch Olivia Colman in anything.

In Vitro 

IN VITRO
Sci Fi thriller
Director: Will Howarth, Tom McKeith
Writer: Will Howarth, Tom McKeith, Talia Zucker
Producers: Will Howarth, Lisa Shaunessy
Cast: Ashley Zuckerman, Talia Zucker, Will Howarth
Distributor: Madman

Synopsis: On a struggling cattle farm some years in the future, a woman discovers the unsettling consequences of her husband’s animal breeding technology.

The hook that has us hooked: ScreenHub reviewer Stephen A. Russell said In Vitro was ‘a promising new entry into the ever-increasing canon of films ill at ease with how humanity is abusing technology designed to course-correct our self-inflicted problems.’

We Bury the Dead

WE BURY THE DEAD
Drama horror thriller
Director-writer: Zak Hilditch
Producers: Kelvin Munro, Grant Sputore, Ross Dinerstein, Mark Fasano, Joshua Harris
Cast: Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, Mark Coles Smith
Distributor: Umbrella

Synopsis: With her husband missing in the aftermath of a catastrophic military experiment, a desperate woman (Daisy Ridley) joins a ‘body retrieval unit’ in the hopes of finding him alive. But her search takes a chilling turn when the corpses she’s burying start showing signs of life …

The hook that hooked us: WA director Zak Hilditch (These Final Hours, Transmission) has a knack for post-apocalyptic drama that feels real. Also, Stephen A. Russell gave the film five stars when he reviewed it at the Adelaide Film Festival.