DRAMAS
-
ALL OF A SUDDEN
Palace Cinemas
Marie-Lou runs an aged-care facility on the outskirts of Paris. She’s devoted to her job, but is dealing burnout. Her spirit is rekindled when she meets Japanese playwright Mari. As they plunge headlong into all-night conversations about mortality, philosophy and the degradations of capitalism, Mari and Marie-Lou’s new friendship changes both of their lives forever.
-
BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY
Palace Cinemas
14 year-old Sid Bookman is caught between childhood and adolescence, navigating burgeoning sexual curiosity and a desperate desire for acceptance. Everything changes when her sister returns from university with Freya, a magnetic friend from America, whose attention awakens something Sid can’t yet name.
-
BITTER CHRISTMAS
Palace Cinemas
Pedro Almodóvar delivers stories within stories about when art that imitates life a little too closely. Elsa is an advertising director, in 2004; Raúl is a film director writing the story of Elsa, in 2026. Elsa, like Raúl, resorts to autofiction as a source of creative inspiration - leading to real-life consequences when the limits of narrative appropriation are tested.
-
BOSS CAT
Palace Cinemas
After her mother dies, a woman with Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) must campaign against the plans of her estranged grandmother to sell the family home and send her away. To gain the support she needs, she must first channel an explosive temper into something more positive…Krump dance.
-
HEN
Palace Cinemas
Escaping from a chicken farm, a hen finds refuge in the courtyard of a crumbling restaurant. There, she discovers love, confronts the pecking order, and fights to protect her eggs from a greedy owner. Her droll yet touching quest for motherhood mirrors the messy compromises and silent struggles of human lives.
-
LATE FAME
Palace Cinemas
Willem Dafoe stars as Ed Saxberger, a postal worker who once wrote a book of poetry nobody cared for. When a flattering fan beckons him into a coterie of young admirers, he is anointed as a rediscovered genius. Intoxicated by their attention and the charm of the ‘tragic heroine’ of the group, Ed gradually reckons with the authenticity of his newfound poetic circle.
-
SWEET MILK LAKE
Palace Cinemas
After being mistaken for his twin brother by his estranged and dying dad, a soft-spoken trans man relishes the opportunity to be one of the boys - until the weight of the lie becomes heavier than his need for the truth. At its core, Sweet Milk Lake is a story about longing - to be understood, to exist in contradiction and complexity, beyond definition.
-
THE FOX
Palace Cinemas
Nick, the affable heir to a wealthy rural landowner, discovers his fiancée Kori is cheating on him. When he encounters a talking Fox who offers him an unusual opportunity to save their relationship and turn her into the perfect partner, Nick decides to follow its advice. But when Kori suddenly seems to become everything he ever wanted, her strange new quirks soon make him question whether he’s made a terrible mistake.
-
THE LIGHTKEEPER
Palace Cinemas
Ireland, 1924. Seamus is a lighthouse keeper stuck in a cycle of grief. The walls he has created begin to crack when three lives intersect with his own: the housekeeper who quietly yearns for him; the beautiful American war widow whose quest for closure ignites something in him; and the hard-line priest, who starts a battle of wills with a man who has nothing to lose.
-
TIBER
Palace Cinemas
After losing his job in Rome, Australian-Italian art historian Marco returns to Tuscany, where he sets out in a vintage Fiat with his young daughter Lucia on a journey toward the Tiber River. Travelling through an Italian summer of encounters shaped by memory, art and history, Marco is drawn toward a reckoning with a loss he has long tried to contain.
-
INTERNATIONAL SHORTS
Palace Cinemas
Travel the world through a standout collection of international short films, bringing together bold storytelling, diverse perspectives and some of the strongest short-form filmmaking in this year’s festival.
-
STAY STRANGE - SHORT FILM SESSION
Palace Cinemas
Because normal is a myth... Stay Strange flips the bird to conformity with a bold selection of short films that are anything but safe. From soulful to surreal, spiky to absurd, these shorts celebrate outsiders, rebels and the beautifully unconventional. Expect sharp wit, emotional jolts, and moments that gleam with strange, unforgettable magic.
-
YOUNG AUSTRALIAN FILMMAKER OF THE YEAR
Palace Cinemas
In the pulsating heart of the Australian film landscape lies a gem that sparkles with the promise of tomorrow: the Young Australian Filmmaker of the Year Competition. An integral part of BBFF since 2007, this competition has, year after year, stood as a beacon for budding filmmakers, calling out to those who dare to dream big.