15 Documentaries To Watch At Adelaide Film Festival 2026

The Adelaide Film Festival 2026 program features documentaries covering everything from music and art to Australian history, identity, politics and deeply personal stories.

AFF also has five films competing for its $10,000 Feature Documentary Award, while several Australian documentaries will have their world or Australian premieres during the festival.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the biggest documentaries showing at AFF 2026.

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Jean-Michel Basquiat

An intimate portrait of iconic 20th-century artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, told through the eyes of those closest to him: his family.

The documentary arrives at AFF for its Australian premiere after winning Best Editing in a Documentary Feature at Tribeca.

Wolf

British avant-pop musician Patrick Wolf revisits the triumphs and traumas that shaped his life and music through a lifetime of archival material and a searching conversation with longtime friend Tilda Swinton. Delicate yet emotionally raw, Wolf exchanges mythmaking for vulnerability.

One of five films competing for the AFF Feature Documentary Award.

KUMARANGK: Sacred Women’s Business

hrough extraordinary interviews and richly textured archive, KUMARANGK: Sacred Women’s Business restores humanity to one of Australia’s most divisive cultural conflicts, returning the story to the women who lived it.

The documentary will have its world premiere at AFF 2026.

The Balkan Cowboy

Artist Dragana Jurisic travels to the town of Bijeljina, Bosnia to stage a short film in the style of a cult Western director Hari Dzekson. In meeting the local community, she asks the town and herself to confront the ghosts of the past.

The film will have its Australian premiere at AFF.

Tehran, Under the Skin

Explores body image and self-perception through intimate, empathetic interviews with Iranian plastic surgery clients.

Tehran, Under the Skin is competing for AFF’s Feature Documentary Award.

The Way You See Me

Filmed across a decade, this evolving self-portrait captures gender transition from the inside out, tracing a radical transformation from hyperfemininity towards defiant masculinity while confronting the forces of class, privilege and patriarchy within Mexico’s conservative upper-middle-class society.

One of five films competing for the AFF Feature Documentary Award.

Aftermath

Who takes care of the emotionally scarred survivors of an atrocity after everyone else moves on? This sobering and insightful documentary bears witness to trauma’s harrowing effects and the seductive pull of alternative facts — where even the unlikeliest of people can be ensnared.

Aftermath will have its world premiere at Adelaide Film Festival 2026.

The Forbidden Aunt

An actress documents her enigmatic Serbian aunt’s story, revealing family secrets and personal history in a dark comedy exploring female trauma across generations.

The Forbidden Aunt will have its Australian premiere at AFF.

The Best Summer

Raw footage captures 90s alt-rock legends performing, talking and hanging backstage. Follow Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Pavement, Rancid, Beck, The Amps and Bikini Kill in their prime.

Everybody Digs Bill Evans

Legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans forms his perfect trio, recording two groundbreaking albums. When his brilliant young bassist dies tragically, Evans is devastated. The story follows Evans’ journey to overcome grief and return to music.

We Are The Shaggs

In 1960s New Hampshire, a father acts on a prophecy by forcing his three musically-inexperienced daughters to form a band. Their resulting album, recorded in 1969, became one of rock history’s most bewildering releases.

Yumburra

Bruce Pascoe on his riverside farm after Dark Emu, recharging and reflecting while testing theories from his book.

The Piano Tuner

A dedicated piano tuner on a rescue mission encounters various owners and their pianos, uncovering the unique stories and bonds they share with the instrument.

The Way We Move

A deaf person can feel music’s beat through their feet. Powerhouse Amber Galloway reckons the community deserves more. Join her bootcamp for ASL translators, teaching them to reveal the heart of a song beating between the lyrics, and the wordless highs and lows from classical music to EDM in this SXSW highlight.

The documentary comes to Adelaide following its appearance at SXSW.

Britain’s Nuclear Bomb Scandal: Our Story

The story of Britain’s postwar atomic weapons programme and the devastating legacy for the thousands of service personnel who took part and the impact on their families and indigenous communities. This BBC Two film pieces together testimony and pioneering journalism – weaving chilling allegations of decades of cover up at the heart of government with the shattering human cost of Britain’s race to become a global nuclear power.

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These are only some of the documentaries screening throughout Adelaide Film Festival 2026, with the program also featuring documentary shorts.

Adelaide Film Festival 2026 runs from October 14-25.

Which documentaries are on your AFF 2026 watchlist? Let us know in the comments below.

[Information and descriptions supplied by Adelaide Film Festival]