Ten filmmakers were selected for the group travelling to Cannes: Sandy Cameron, Ben Golotta, Timothy David, Kelly Schilling, Leela Varghese, Travis Akbar, Lisa Scott, Joshua Trevorrow, Matt Vesely, and Nara Wilson.
The opening night gala film was The Correspondent, based on journalist Peter Greste's memoir The First Casualty, directed by Kriv Stenders and starring Richard Roxburgh, both of whom were in attendance.
[31] In 2024 filmmaker Sophie Hyde took on the role of patron,[26] after well-known film critics Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton retired from their ten years of service to the festival.
A few dozen more, by virtue of vision, originality, striking setting, audience zest and/or their ability to mine a unique niche, also rank as must-attends".
Bettison created the Developed Image Photographic Gallery, co-founded communications company Codan and served as Deputy Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, his alma mater (an honorary position[68]).
Helen was an exhibiting studio artist, who served on a number of arts committees and was one of the founding members of the National Library of Australia’s Foundation Board.
Worth A$5,000 and sponsored by Zambrero, it is awarded "for positive social or environmental impact and cinema expressing new directions for humanity", initially selected by audience vote,[8] and in later years by a jury.
Nothing Happens, by Michelle and Uri Kranot, won the inaugural award, while The Other Dakar by Selly Raby, based on Senegalese mythology, received a Special Mention.
[96][56] In partnership with Screen Australia, KOJO and the National Film and Sound Archive, this initiative, the first of its kind, was created in 2015 to support an "innovative, observational and/or social justice documentary" with a funding package of up to A$738,000.
[citation needed] Jury members for the Flinders University Documentary Prize have included Eva Orner (2017); Beck Cole (2015) and Michael Loebenstein (2015).
[105] Amanda Duthie, AFF artistic director and virtual reality champion, sat on the jury for the inaugural AFTRS International VR Award in 2017.
[115] The winning team, comprising director Matt Vesely, producer Bettina Hamilton and writer Lucy Campbell, were given six months to develop, shoot and edit their film, which premiered at the 2022 Festival to much acclaim.
Monolith, which features Australian actress Lily Sullivan, has since gone to screen at pop culture festival SXSW and will receive a general cinema release in mid-2023.
[116] The second project to be funded by the initiative was animated comedy Lesbian Space Princess, by writers and directors Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese and producer Tom Phillips.
On the opening night of the festival, director and screenwriter Andrew Bovell received the 2015 Don Dunstan Award for his contribution to the Australian film industry.
The first of the works commissioned by the Adelaide Film Festival Fund in that month was the Australian premiere season of Lynette Wallworth's Collisions[10] (5–30 October).
Then there was a free talk by Greg Mackie at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on 23 October, and the events culminated in a 4-day mini-festival (27–30 October) featuring world premiere screenings of two films – Australia's first Muslim rom-com Ali's Wedding, based on the life of actor, writer and comedian Osamah Sami, and a special "work in progress" screening of David Stratton's Stories of Australian Cinema, directed by Sally Aitken[118] (later released as David Stratton: A Cinematic Life[119][120][121]).
It featured A Fantastic Woman, Call Me By Your Name, a set by Adelaide punk band Exploding White Mice and Ai Weiwei's documentary about migration, Human Flow.
[123] Hotel Mumbai, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, rock documentary Bad Reputation (about Joan Jett) and The Nightingale (directed by The Babadook director Jennifer Kent) were some of the films shown.
[124] In April 2019, a weekend "pop-up" event was held, to showcase Wayne Blair's romcom, Top End Wedding, and Adelaide filmmaker Sophie Hyde's Australian/Irish co-production Animals.
[127] To open the festival, the locally filmed sci-fi thriller 2067 played in seven cinemas simultaneously, with extra screenings added due to demand.
[126] The competition jury comprised playwright and screenwriter Andrew Bovell, actor Natasha Wanganeen, filmmaker Khoa Do, producer Rebecca Summerton of Closer Productions, and film critic Zak Hepburn.
Films selected for screening include Todd Field's TÁR (starring Cate Blanchett, who appeared in a Q&A session after its first showing[131]); My Policeman, with Harry Styles; South Australian horror thriller Carnifex, with Alexandra Park; Ruben Östlund's Triangle of Sadness; Stolen Generations story The Last Daughter; and Aftersun, a debut from Scottish director Charlotte Wells.
[134] It was announced after the opening weekend that several films would get a second outing in the week following the festival, including TÁR, Monolith, Talk to Me, The Last Daughter, and Triangle of Sadness.
Gala events screened The Royal Hotel, directed and co-written by Kitty Green and filmed in South Australia; true crime documentary Speedway, directed by Luke Rynderman and Adam Kamien; and the closing gala featured director Scott Hicks' symphonic concert documentary My Name's Ben Folds - I Play Piano, about musician Ben Folds.