KUMARANGK adds fourth session ahead of Adelaide Film Festival

Opening night: McDonagh on Easter Island

Wild Horse Nine is the new film from the writer-director of In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin. The festival's program page calls it a black comedy set on Easter Island in the lead-up to the 1973 Chilean coup. It follows two CIA operatives who "navigate loyalty, conspiracy and the consequences of foreign intervention."

The cast includes John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey and Tom Waits. It runs 118 minutes and comes to Adelaide after screening at Venice and Toronto. We covered both festivals in September, including Venice's opening night and Toronto's line-up.

The gala's at the Capri Theatre in Goodwood. The pink carpet runs from 5pm and the film starts at 6pm. After that, guests head to the Queen's Theatre on Playhouse Lane for a 1970s-themed party. The dress code is "70's cocktail."

Closing night and the South Australian films

The festival closes on Sunday 25 October with the world premiere of Hell Has No Fire Escape. It's a feature documentary co-directed by Georgina Savage and South Australia's Matthew Bate. The South Australian Film Corporation says it's the story of Pastor Ina Dry, a 63-year-old widow who inherits her late husband's evangelical rehab centre in the South African desert. While she tries to keep it running, she drifts towards TikTok, fantasy television and an online romance with a man pretending to be Jason Momoa.

The SAFC counts 10 South Australian feature films it backed in this year's program, plus 10 shorts. Here are some of them.

KUMARANGK: Sacred Women's Business is a world-premiere documentary from Ngarrindjeri and Wotjobaluk writer-director Tracey Rigney, with Ngarrindjeri producer Josh Trevorrow. It tells the story of the Ngarrindjeri women's decade-long fight to protect sacred sites on Hindmarsh Island, using new interviews and archival footage from the 1980s and 1990s. The festival says the film returns "this defining chapter of South Australian history to the women who lived it." The SAFC lists an extended Q&A after the 17 October screening.

Lucrum is a folk horror and the first feature from writer Piri Eddy, Yankunytjatjara writer Pearl Berry, Yankunytjatjara producer Lilla Berry and director Johanis Lyons-Reid. Sophie Lowe stars. The SAFC says it's the first feature made by a South Australian First Nations-led creative team with major state government support.

Ruby, Ruby is a world-premiere horror film shot in the Adelaide Hills. It's inspired by the local legend of Ruby Bland, an 18-year-old who died in Kapunda in 1909. Her ghost is said to haunt St John's Cemetery.

Pressure is Adelaide director Anthony Maras's follow-up to Hotel Mumbai. It's a WWII drama starring Brendan Fraser and Andrew Scott about the part the weather played in the Normandy landings.

The Fox is back for more screenings before it opens in Australian cinemas. Dario Russo's darkly funny folktale premiered at AFF last year. It stars Jai Courtney and Emily Browning, with the voices of Olivia Colman and the late Sam Neill. The SAFC says it's since won the Audience Award for Best Australian Feature at the Sydney Film Festival and Best Australian Director at MIFF.

Shine at 30

One of the festival's anniversary events celebrates Shine, Scott Hicks's 1996 film about pianist David Helfgott, which was shot in Adelaide. It won Geoffrey Rush the Best Actor Oscar and was up for seven Academy Awards. AFF will premiere a new 4K restoration, and concert pianist Simon Tedeschi, who played young Helfgott's hands in the film, will give a recital before the screening.

Hicks is also launching a new book about the ten years it took to make the film. He'll be in conversation with the ABC's Deb Tribe at the Mercury on 21 October. You can register for free through the Mercury's website.

Competitions, awards and the rest of the program

Five features are in the main competition. There's the Chilean fantasy Donkey Princess, the Myanmar-set romance Fruit Gathering, the Mumbai drama Lovers in the Blue Night, the apartheid-era coming-of-age story The Smell of Apples, and the Australian film Tiber. A separate documentary competition has five more. The $5,000 AFF Change Award goes to a film about environmental or social change. Steal This Story, Please!, about journalist Amy Goodman, is one of the contenders.

Glam Adelaide reports that award winners from other festivals are coming too. They include Cannes Best Actor winner Coward, Cannes Best Director winner Fatherland, Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Josephine and Berlin Silver Bear winner Rose, starring Sandra Hüller. Paper Tiger, with Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller, is one of the special presentations.

The festival also runs the $50,000 Bettison & James Award. This year it goes to Karina Lester, a Yankunytjatjara Anangu woman and Aboriginal language expert and activist from the APY Lands.

Festival CEO and creative director Mat Kesting summed it up in the program announcement: "AFF is All For Film."

How to plan your fortnight

The festival's official 2026 trailer, on its YouTube channel, gives you a quick tour of the program. The festival's info page says films start at the advertised time with hardly any ads, so get there on time. Red carpet events start 30 minutes before the session.

If KUMARANGK's on your list, grab a ticket to that fourth session while there are still some left. Opening night is Wednesday 14 October, and the festival wraps up on Sunday 25 October.