Damon Herriman, Will McDonald among CinefestOZ Short Film Awards finalists

Finalists in the 2026 CinefestOZ Short Film Competition were announced today ahead of the Short Film Awards, which will be held Thursday 3 September in Busselton, Western Australia, as part of Australia’s largest destination film festival (28 August to 6 September).  Recognising exceptional storytelling and emerging talent in the short filmmaking sector, 22 films are in the running for awards across seven categories. These finalists were…

Meet the CinefestOZ 2026 Film Prize Jury

Producer Greer Simpkin, one of the creative forces behind the upcoming film adaptation of Prima Facie, starring Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo, will chair the CinefestOZ Film Prize Jury, which will decide the winner of Australia’s richest $100,000 Film Prize at this year’s festival, running 28 August to 6 September in Western Australia’s South West.  Simpkin will be joined on the jury by New Zealand actor and…

Competition: Win a copy of Jellyfish on DVD!

Thanks to our friends at Bounty Entertainment, we’re giving three lucky Cinema Australia readers the chance to win a DVD copy of Giles Chan’s debut feature film, Jellyfish. The film Henry (Aidan Rynne), a slacker floating through young adulthood earning a measly income from selling his body as a human punching bag. Meanwhile he wonders…

Interview: Isaac Elliott

Of the Australian sports feature documentaries released over the past decade, it’s no surprise that such a large number of them have focused on AFL, the biggest sport in the land.  At least nine have centred on the sport, including two documentaries released in the same year about the same person: Adam Goodes (The Australian…

What’s On: Tina Arena to take to the stage in Sydney to celebrate the release of Tina Arena: Unravel Me

Tina Arena will join Mary Coustas on stage at special preview screenings and in conversation events in Sydney on Sunday 23 August, to celebrate the upcoming cinema release of the new documentary Tina Arena: Unravel Me. The highly anticipated film received its World Premiere last night at the Astor Theatre as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival,…

Critically-acclaimed satire The Birthday Trip lands in Perth

After defying expectations in the East, critically-acclaimed indie satire The Birthday Trip lands on the West Coast today, screening exclusively at Luna Leederville.  Despite being snubbed by festivals and distributors, the film was self-released by the filmmakers, and has gone on to out-perform films in its weight class from established distributors, garnering substantial critical acclaim…

Interview: Arlo Dean Cook

If you were around during the late ’90s and early 2000s, and you enjoyed driving around for hours with more people in the car than there were seatbelts, wagging school, partying until dawn every weekend, or taking part in any activity that involved bongs and buckets, dropping tabs, popping pills, or funnelling full bottles of…

Four new Australian films announced for Adelaide Film Festival

Ahead of its full program launch on September 15, the Adelaide Film Festival has announced the Australian Premiere of the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund film Agata The Writer.  Direct from its world premiere at the 2026 Venice Film Festival, Agata The Writer is the debut feature film from Polish-born visual artist and filmmaker Kuba Dorabialski. …

More than one of the boys: Mitchell Withers on his powerful new documentary For the Boys

Mitchell Withers’ powerful documentary short For the Boys is an intimate portrayal of Australia’s first openly queer former AFL player, Mitch Brown – a trailblazer in Australian sporting culture. Bringing audiences into Mitch’s dedication to his sons, the complexity of his relationship with a game that shaped him, and the winding path to liberating himself,…