The Very Short Film Festival lands at Classic Cinemas in Elsternwick for a single Melbourne date on 26 August.
The Very Short Film Festival brings a night of sub-five-minute Australian shorts to Melbourne, and every entry earns the name.
The Elsternwick date is a single Melbourne stop on the festival’s 2026 national tour, touching down at Classic Cinemas with a curated pick of this year’s standout films. Because the Very Short Film Festival caps every entry at five minutes, the program moves at pace, fitting a full slate of stories into a tight window and leaning on impact, originality and craft rather than runtime. The one-night format keeps the whole thing to a single sitting, with the films screening back to back before the panel takes over.
Very Short Film Festival
- 26 August
- Classic Cinemas, Elsternwick
- Tickets and program at vsff.com.au/screenings
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The Melbourne date pairs the films with a filmmaker Q&A, so the audience can hear straight from the people behind this year’s shorts. Every film was made specifically for the festival, each responding to the 2026 signature theme, Thread, in its own direction. The slate plays out over a wide range of stories, perspectives and themes, with each one built to make audiences laugh, reflect and look at things a little differently.
The Q&A panel pulls together a strong group of 2026 filmmakers. Josephine Croft, who made Best Film winner The Pocket Dial, joins Michael de Lange, co-creator of Best Story winner Version 1.0, and Isaac Sargent, whose Wear & Tear took out Best Cinematic Craft. A handful of this year’s finalists fill out the rest of the line-up.
Open to filmmakers of every age and background, the festival makes its pitch for storytelling in its most concise form. The Melbourne date is one leg of a broader 2026 national tour designed to carry the program past a single weekend and put the same films in front of crowds around the country. Marta Dusseldorp serves as the festival’s ambassador, while Tamara Svirskis directs proceedings through Film Fest Collective.
For more information, head here.
