27 October 2025
Credit: Frameline
2025 has proven to be yet another successful year for the Adelaide Film Festival (AFF), with strong entries for short films, independent films, blockbusters and Adelaide-made films with some big international names attached.
With the festival coming to a close this weekend, here is a brief rundown of some of the highlights from this year’s lineup of short and feature length films showcased.
Credit: SA Film Corporation
Opening night saw the screening of Jimpa, directed by Adelaide’s own Sophie Hyde. It stars big names Olivia Colman and John Lithgow, telling the story of Adelaide-based filmmaker Hannah and their non-binary teenager Frances reconnecting with Hannah’s estranged gay father, the titular “Jimpa”. The semi-biographical film received significant praise from critics prior to its screening at the festival and would seem to have been a wise choice to be the premiere of the opening night gala, which featured a total of eight SA-made feature films: the greatest number in the history of the AFF thus far. Some other standouts of the main features include the following: The Fox by Dario Russo (creator of the comedy series Danger 5), a dark comedy centring around the relationship between a man and mysterious fox and the struggle between civility and wildness; mockumentary film Mockbuster by first-time director Anthony Fring, following a filmmaker’s descent into madness as he makes a small-budget dinosaur film; comedic thriller Penny Lane is Dead (directed by award-winner Mia’ Kate Russell), which will entertain any who enjoy a blood-soaked thriller set in the 1980s, and; Diabolic (directed by Daniel J. Phillips and featuring a full cast of homegrown actors), a religious horror film that will thrill any fan of horror and specifically possession horror films. For further information on each of these films, click here for a more detailed breakdown of each of these films by the South Australian Film Corporation.
The AFF also premiered many prominent Hollywood and non-Hollywood films slated for later release, including Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025), bizarre black comedy Bugonia from Yorgos Lanthimos, and Venice Film Festival darling Vanilla from Mexican writer-director Mayra Hermosillo.
Out of the selection of short film screenings that were on offer at this year’s festival, I want to focus on the Made in SA shorts.
Credit: Adelaide Film Festival
Argued by some (including Heather Taylor Johnson from InDaily, see here for her article on this screening) as one of if not the most important screening of the AFF, I was personally very impressed with the lineup of shorts that were on display for this year’s festival. Another lineup of eight films, the shared themes of each of these films appears to revolve around the trials and tribulations of women, disabled people and anxieties over both the present and possible future. Lie Down, Breathe Out and The Secret both centre around horrors inflicted on women’s bodies and their lived experiences, Alpha Test plays on current anxieties about the future of AI, Into the Earth plays on anxieties about the mundane here and now, Tunnel Vision is a brief but entertaining journey from the mundane into a schlocky horror comedy, and the remaining films 7 Minutes to Rice, Liability and The Knight are insightful and wholesome explorations of life with intellectual disabilities. The standout for me is Lie Down, Breathe Out: the non-stop terror from waking up on an operating table to hearing you cannot have anaesthetic during a medical procedure are then accentuated by the surreal and visceral horrors captured by the camera angles and colour palette during these scenes. It is a truly breathtaking portrayal of the lived experience of horrific medical malpractice that is still inflicted on women’s bodies to this day.
For further information, please see the AFF’s official website here.