From late-night horror at the Astor to free filmmaker workshops, here's where to spend your time at St Kilda Film Festival.
The St Kilda Film Festival has spent decades proving short film deserves a front row seat, and this year it’s gone harder than ever.
Australia’s longest-running short film festival is back for 2026 with 11 days, nearly 200 films and a program that spans comedy, horror, documentary, animation, experimental work and everything sitting awkwardly in between.
The talent on show is impressive, with Australian names like Hugo Weaving, Kat Stewart, Colin Lane and Sophie Wilde appearing throughout the program. Animator Michael Cusack, the brain behind Smiling Friends and YOLO, makes his live-action directing debut, and Ed Oxenbould also has new work in the mix.
The festival takes over the Palais Theatre, the Astor Theatre and St Kilda Town Hall from 4–14 June, and as Australia’s longest-running short film festival it’s never been shy about pushing the form in new directions, with music videos, gaming and immersive works all part of the conversation alongside more familiar formats.
There is genuinely a lot to get through, so here are Beat’s top picks for what to see, do and catch while SKFF takes over the neighbourhood.
St Kilda Film Festival 2026
- When: 4–14 June 2026
- Where: various venues across St Kilda (Palais Theatre, Astor Theatre, St Kilda Town Hall)
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
DARK MATTERS
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- 5 June, 9:30 pm
- The Astor Theatre, 1 Chapel St, St Kilda
- Session followed by filmmaker Q&A
- Tickets here
If horror’s having a moment in 2026, Dark Matters is its late-night cathedral. This after-dark program at the Astor serves up a deliciously nasty spread of Australian chillers, parental dread, botched incantations, unconventional romance, mysterious wall cracks and more things that go bump in the night. Local horror is seriously thriving right now, and this session is the proof.
FIRST PEOPLES SHOWCASE — BLACK AS
Presented by CitiPower
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- 7 June, 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm
- St Kilda Town Hall, 99a Carlisle St, St Kilda
- $10 tickets here
One of the most genuinely original things to hit Australian screens in years, Black As is a wild, hilarious and deeply felt celebration of Yolngu culture from the remote Arnhem Land community of Ramingining. Built from the ground up with the Black As boys, their ideas, their humour, their adventures on country, it grew from a few rough webisodes into a global phenomenon clocking over 200 million views online. All four seasons were performed entirely in local Yolngu language, which makes it all the more remarkable.
At SKFF, filmmaker David Batty brings a special 90-minute talk and screening event unpacking the journey behind the series and a filmmaking career of more than 45 years across Central Australia, the Kimberley and Arnhem Land. Expect behind-the-scenes stories, clips, and a deep dive into what it really means to make films in remote Australia, including Batty’s long history supporting and mentoring Aboriginal people in media, from CAAMA to Bush Mechanics and beyond.
ANIMATION SHOWCASE
- 13 June, 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
- St Kilda Town Hall, 99a Carlisle St, St Kilda
- Tickets here
- Session followed by filmmaker Q&A
Forget everything you thought you knew about what animation can do, because this session is a full serving of the real stuff. From works already turning heads on the international circuit to quietly devastating tearjerkers, environmentally minded gems and a few things that frankly resist description, this is animated filmmaking at its most alive. Oh, and it features the animated music video for Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s 2025 track Shapes and Forms, so yeah, it’s epic.
COMEDY AFTER DARK
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- 12 June, 8:30 pm – 10:00 pm
- St Kilda Town Hall, 99a Carlisle St, St Kilda
- Tickets here
Australia has always done dark comedy with a particular kind of gleeful nastiness, and this program is proof. Comedy After Dark tangles up black comedy, crime, horror and chaos into something that’ll have you laughing, squirming and white-knuckling your armrest in equal measure. There’s a revenge story of the blackest possible variety, AI going spectacularly off the rails, the bureaucratic horror of a simple form, the world’s strangest TV sitcom and a housemate you’d call the police about. Bleak, brilliant and very, very funny.
LOVE AT FIRST SHORT
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- 8 June, 8:30 pm – 10:00 pm
- St Kilda Town Hall, 99a Carlisle St, St Kilda
- Session followed by filmmaker Q&A
- Tickets here
Nothing caps off a long weekend quite like a room full of strangers getting emotionally wrecked together. Love at First Short lands on the King’s Birthday public holiday and brings a proper rollercoaster of a short film program, the flutter of new attraction, the cringe of early dates, the heat of a make-up after a big argument and everything in between. Bring someone you like. Or someone you’re trying to impress. Either works.
LIVE CINEMA EXPERIENCE
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- 8 June, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
- St Kilda Town Hall, 99a Carlisle St, St Kilda
- Session followed by filmmaker Q&A
- $10 tickets here
Cinema as a live sport, now that’s a sentence. Four teams of filmmakers shoot, edit and broadcast four interlocking short films in real time, right in front of you, with zero safety net and all the glorious mayhem that entails. Acclaimed live cinema director Michael Beets from HERE & NOW is at the helm, and the result promises to be one of the most genuinely electric experiences of the festival. All tickets are just $10, and a post-show Q&A lets you debrief with the teams on how they pulled it off.
THE BIG PICTURE
Presented by JMC Academy
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- 7 June, 11:00 am – 6:30 pm
- JMC Academy, Park St Campus (208 Park St), South Melbourne
- Tickets: Free
Free, packed and genuinely useful, The Big Picture is back for 2026 and it’s bigger than ever. SKFF’s beloved filmmaker development day takes over JMC Academy’s Park Street Campus in South Melbourne for a full day of hands-on workshops, panels, forums, exhibitions, screenings and Q&As covering pretty much every corner of the craft.
This year there’s also a dedicated emerging filmmaker strand for anyone just finding their feet, so whether you’re a total beginner or a seasoned short-film tragic looking to level up, there’s something here with your name on it.
The lineup is absolutely stacked. A few highlights:
- Building Networks and How to Find Your Crew / Panel, 11:00 am (Park St Campus) / Emerging Track
- The Art of the Pitch: Building a Pitch Deck / Panel, 11:00 am (Park St Campus)
- Navigating Intimacy for the Screen / Workshop, 11:00 am (Park St Campus)
- By the Skin of Your Teeth: Microbudget Filmmaking / Panel, 11:00 am (Park St Campus)
- Move the Story, Not Just the Camera: Secrets of the Steadicam / Workshop, 11:00 am (Bank St Campus)
- The Wonders of 16mm Filmmaking / Workshop, 11:00 am–4:45 pm (Park St Campus) (fully booked)
- AI & Filmmaking: Disruption or Evolution? / Panel, 12:30 pm (Park St Campus)
- Behind the Frames: Gender Diversity in Animation / Panel, 12:30 pm (Park St Campus)
- Co-Authorship and Cross-Cultural Filmmaking / Panel, 12:30 pm (Park St Campus)
- Financing Your Film / Panel, 12:00 pm (Park St Campus) / Big Picture Intensive
- Ask Me Anything: Producers / Q&A, 12:30 pm (Park St Campus) / Emerging Track
- We Discuss the Dead: Horror, Genre & Audiences / Panel, 2:00 pm (Park St Campus)
- Kill Your Darlings: How an Editor Shapes the Story / Panel, 2:00 pm (Park St Campus)
- Rolling Frames: A Skate Video Workshop / Panel, 2:00 pm–5:00 pm (Park St Campus) / Emerging Track
- The Sound of Silence: Film Sound for Filmmakers / Workshop, 2:15 pm (Bank St Campus)
- An Analogue Revolution: Secrets of Working with Tape, Super 8 & 16mm / Workshop, 3:30 pm (Park St Campus)
- The Secrets to Grant Writing and Successful Funding Applications / Panel, 3:30 pm (Park St Campus)
- The Witchy Girls: Making the Show No One Wanted / Panel, 3:30 pm (Park St Campus)
- Networking / 5:00 pm–6:30 pm (Bank St Campus)
For more information, head here.
This article was made in partnership with St Kilda Film Festival.
