Short films are having a moment, and the St Kilda Film Festival is here to prove it.
Eleven days, nearly 200 films, and St Kilda is about to get very busy.
The St Kilda Film Festival runs from 4–14 June, taking over the Palais Theatre, the Astor Theatre and St Kilda Town Hall for what shapes up as one of the more ambitious programs the festival has put together.
The Top Shorts competition drew a record 960 submissions this year, up seven per cent on the previous year, with 15 awards on the line including a spot in the Academy Awards qualifying conversation.
The range on offer is wonderfully and genuinely broad. Comedy, horror, documentary, animation, experimental work and everything sitting awkwardly in between all feature across the program, with Australian names like Hugo Weaving, Kat Stewart, Colin Lane and Sophie Wilde appearing throughout. Animator Michael Cusack, best known for Smiling Friends and YOLO, makes his live-action directing debut, and Ed Oxenbould also has new work in the mix.
As Australia’s longest-running short film festival, the St Kilda Film Festival has long recognised that short film extends well beyond traditional narrative filmmaking, encompassing music videos, gaming and immersive works alongside the more familiar formats.
Let’s see everything happening this year!
St Kilda Film Festival 2026
- When: 4–14 June 2026
- Where: various venues across St Kilda (Palais Theatre, Astor Theatre, St Kilda Town Hall)
- Tickets here
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What’s on at St Kilda Film Festival 2026?
A red-carpet opening gala at the Palais Theatre on 4 June kicks things off, setting the tone for what promises to be a packed and eclectic 11 days.
The Astor Theatre hosts St Kilda Rocks on 5 June, a double-documentary night dedicated to two venues that shaped Melbourne’s music history. Punkline from 1980 captures the Crystal Ballroom in its heyday, a venue that hosted Nick Cave, The Cure, New Order and the Dead Kennedys, while Last Drinks from 1996 documents the final days of the Prince of Wales Hotel before its first renovation.
Last Drinks has only screened publicly once before, making this its 30th anniversary and only its second public showing. The night opens with a live PBS radio broadcast of Stone Love and closes with a filmmaker Q&A.
Also landing on 5 June, the Australian Comedy Showcase delivers sharp, chaotic short films riffing on modern life. Relationships falling apart, family dysfunction, social awkwardness and the particular anxieties of living online are all fair game. One of the festival’s fastest-selling sessions, it’s followed by a filmmaker Q&A.
Genre-blending session Tales of Mystery and Imagination: System Error arrives on 6 June, examining humanity’s complicated relationship with technology, AI and the increasingly blurry line between human and machine.
Two big events on 6 and 7 June. The Big Picture (6 June) is the festival’s free filmmaker development day, presented by JMC Academy, featuring 42 panels, workshops and networking events open to creatives at any stage of their career. And on 7 June, the First Peoples Showcase: Black As follows filmmaker David Batty into Arnhem Land, tracking a group of hunters navigating country, culture and connection under unexpected circumstances.
The Live Cinema Experience on 8 June puts the filmmaking process itself on display. Four teams create, edit and score short films in real time in front of a live audience, led by director Michael Beets.
Two standout sessions run in tandem on 13 June. Pride Without Prejudice is the festival’s LGBTIQ+ showcase, mixing comedy, horror, animation and personal storytelling, followed by drinks and networking at the Victorian Pride Centre. Shifting the Gaze, presented by WIFT Vic, spotlights films by women and gender-diverse filmmakers, closing with a Q&A and industry networking.
Made in VIC runs across two sessions, both on 14 June, a celebration of Victorian screen production across comedy, animation, drama and genre filmmaking, and serves as a fitting close to the festival.
Films to watch for
- Faceless, directed by William Jaka: an award-winning First Peoples film following an Indigenous man moving between three parallel lives along the Birrarung-Ga, exploring identity and belonging in contemporary Australia
- Baby Shower, directed by Matt Day: starring Hugo Weaving, a baby shower spirals into chaos when an estranged father shows up uninvited
- Stranger, Brother, directed by Annelise Hickey: a self-absorbed millennial is forced to confront his family when his estranged half-brother turns up at his door
- THE CEO, directed by Michael Cusack: the Smiling Friends and YOLO animator’s live-action debut, following a newly minted billionaire trying to rub his success in the face of an old flame
- While We Still Have Time, directed by Ava Grimshaw-Hall: a woman sets out to connect with her sperm donor father as he faces a terminal cancer diagnosis
- The Shirt Off Your Back, directed by David Robinson-Smith: two brothers retell the same encounter with a stranger on Christmas Day, with each version shifting and morphing through the lens of memory and the subconscious
- The Dysphoria, directed by Kylie Aoibheann: a trans woman performs a Satanic ritual to get the body she wants and accidentally invites something demonic in along with it
- Calm the F**k Down, directed by Helen Gaynor: a documentary using a role-reversal experiment to examine the psychology of family violence, followed by a live discussion with the director and participants
The festival’s youth competition, Under the Radar, champions filmmakers aged 21 and under and received 135 submissions this year, continuing to highlight the depth of young Australian storytelling talent.
For more information, head here.
This article was made in partnership with St Kilda Film Festival.
