Cinema's wildest mavericks are back with a vengeance in 2025's mind-melting lineup.
Hold onto your popcorn, film freaks – Fantastic Film Festival Australia is about to detonate a cinematic nuke across Melbourne and Sydney screens.
FFFA returns with a program that practically dares you to look away, bringing a gonzo collection of 27 features, 19 shorts and enough boundary-smashing madness to melt your cerebral cortex.
Fantastic Film Festival Australia 2025
- Lido Cinemas (April 24 – May 15)
- Thornbury Picture House (April 29 – May 5)
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“This year we have a panoramic line-up of 27 films, including 17 feature film premieres and 10 iconic classics, plus 19 short films, spread across three weeks of pure cinematic pandemonium,” says Artistic Director Hudson Sowada.
Opening night delivers Hell of a Summer, a gloriously gory love letter to classic slasher flicks co-directed by Stranger Things alumni Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk. Expect buckets of blood, razor-sharp wit and a killer afterparty with DJs spinning while you sink post-screening bevs.
For closing night, FFFA has pulled out the big guns – literally – with John Woo’s action masterpiece Hard Boiled getting the royal treatment. Melbourne jazz outfit The Rookies will perform a live improvisational score that promises to turn the gunfights into a symphonic explosion of brass and bullets.
The festival isn’t shy about getting weird either. Their infamous nude screening is back, this time featuring Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Yes, you can get your kit off and shake your mojo to the groovy spy satire.
Australian cinema gets a proper thrashing with four audacious local premieres. Super 8 nightmare trip A Grand Mockery sits alongside Pure Scum, a brutal takedown of Melbourne private school bros. Salt Along the Tongue dishes up grief-laced culinary horror, while the lunar-shot monochrome epic Sword of Silence defies description.
For the truly twisted, Norwegian animated musical-comedy Spermageddon stands as this year’s jaw-dropper, exploring reproduction with gleeful, boundary-obliterating abandon. Meanwhile, sci-fi freakout Escape from the 21st Century creates a neon-drenched time warp that Scott Pilgrim fans will lose their minds over.
Film buffs can rejoice at the restoration of Australian psychological mindfuck Summerfield, while Cannes opener The Second Act brings Quentin Dupieux’s fourth-wall-demolishing absurdism with a cast including Léa Seydoux and Vincent Lindon.
Short film devotees get two dedicated sessions – Melbourne Shorts and Sydney Shorts – showcasing the next wave of cinematic provocateurs ready to blow your mind in abbreviated form.
Tickets for this cavalcade of the bizarre and brilliant are on sale now. Get them here.
