The St. Ali Italian Film Festival is rolling into Melbourne with pastries, passion and a whole lot of drama.
The 2026 ST. ALi Italian Film Festival returns to Melbourne with 33 films, two visiting Italian stars and enough on-screen pasta and pastry to make you book a flight to Sicily on the spot.
The 2026 ST. ALi Italian Film Festival is heading back to Melbourne, bringing 33 films, two special guests and pastries.
Opening the festival is Palermo-set rom-com Holy Cannoli, written by, directed by and starring Pierfrancesco “Pif” Diliberto as a real estate agent who falls for a devoutly Catholic pastry chef.
Pif himself will front the Melbourne opening night and introduce select screenings while he’s in town.
He’s joined by acclaimed actor Edoardo Leo, who’s bringing two films with him for their Australian premieres: box office hit Separate Beds, about a straitlaced school principal thrown by a free-spirited love interest, and the true-story drama For You, following a father and his young son navigating an unexpected diagnosis.
2026 ST. ALi Italian Film Festival
- Canberra: 16 September – 15 October, Palace Electric Cinema
- Adelaide: 16 September – 13 October, Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas, Palace Nova Prospect Cinemas
- Sydney: 17 September – 14 October, Palace Moore Park, Palace Norton St, Palace Central
- Byron Bay and Ballina: 17 September – 14 October, Palace Byron Bay, Ballina Fair Cinemas
- Melbourne: 18 September – 15 October, The Astor Theatre, Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Church St, Palace Cinema Como, Palace Penny Lane, Palace Westgarth, The Kino, Pentridge Cinema, Cinema Nova
- Ballarat: 18 September – 15 October, Palace Regent Cinemas
- Brisbane: 24 September – 18 October, Palace Barracks, Palace James Street
- Perth: 24 September – 18 October, Palace Raine Square, Luna Leederville, Luna on SX, Windsor Cinema
- Tickets here
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
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Beyond the opening and guest films, the line-up is stacked.
This year’s centrepiece is Sweetheart, an award-winning drama about a boy sent to spend the summer with his elderly aunt in a Sicilian house that may or may not be haunted, fresh off wins for best actress and best new director at the David di Donatello Awards.
Closing the festival is The Echo Chamber, based on Bernardo Bertolucci’s final screenplay and starring Alicia Vikander, Luca Marinelli and Susan Sarandon, fresh from its debut at the Venice International Film Festival.
There’s also a special presentation slot for Three Goodbyes, a bittersweet tale of a couple’s break-up based on the bestselling novel by Michela Murgia, and a world premiere for Sand Roads, an Australian-Italian co-produced documentary following three Aussie blokes on a 50,000km quad bike journey across three continents.
New Italian cinema
The new release slate covers a lot of ground.
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A Brief Affair marks screenwriter Ludovica Rampoldi’s directorial debut, tracking a fling that spirals into something bigger, while Almost Grazia looks at the life of Nobel Prize-winning Sardinian author Grazia Deledda.
Jasmine Trinca stars in both Illusion, a thriller about a prosecutor caught in a web of power and lies, and The Eyes of Others, pulled from real events among Italy’s 1960s elite.
Matilda De Angelis and Stefano Accorsi headline legal thriller The Lesson, Miriam Leone and Accorsi reunite for motherhood drama Beloved, and Words Left Unspoken sends two Roman couples to Tangier for a trip that unravels their relationships.
Elsewhere, Andrea’s Island follows a bitter custody battle, The Greater Good is a love letter to the region of Basilicata told through a hiking group’s search for an ancient pine tree, Malavita traces a Naples teenager’s rap dreams gone wrong, and Show Me the Truth skewers reality television through the eyes of a family who sign up for a game show.
Real stories at the ST. ALi Italian Film Festival
The documentary strand is just as packed.
Nino. 18 Days profiles Neapolitan icon Nino D’Angelo, directed by his own son, while La Scala: The Force of Destiny spends four months backstage with 900 artists and crew at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala.
I Want Her Dead blends fact and farce in a tale from a remote Calabrian village, and two documentaries dig into Italian fashion royalty: Armani and the Birth of Italian Fashion, featuring the late Giorgio Armani’s final on-screen interview alongside Tom Ford, Sharon Stone, Helen Mirren and Samuel L. Jackson, and Brunello, the Gracious Visionary, charting Brunello Cucinelli’s rise from rural Perugia to a billion-dollar fashion empire.
There’s also a full retrospective honouring legendary actor Anna Magnani, kicking off with new biopic Anna Magnani – The Untold Story, which imagines the night she won her 1956 best actress Oscar. It screens alongside two of her most famous films, Bellissima and Mamma Roma.
Comedy, Italian style and for la famiglia
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For lighter viewing, Twin Stars follows a couple expecting twins with two different fathers, Life Is Life pits a Sardinian community against a luxury resort development, and Love Divine is an ensemble rom-com about modern love in Rome.
Family-friendly picks include Classmates, starring Anna Ferzetti as a teacher taking on Rome’s toughest classroom, coming-of-age drama A Year of School, fantasy adventure Incanto, and A Beautiful Day, in which a single dad is talked into dating again by his four daughters.
Melbourne audiences also get an exclusive extra: a free vintage Italian movie poster exhibition at Palace Pentridge, running from 18 September to 15 October and drawing from the personal collections of Santo Cilauro and Palace founder Antonio Zeccola.
The closing night event includes a screening of The Castle followed by a chat with Cilauro about the film’s Italian roots.
For more information, head here.
This article was made in partnership with Palace Cinemas.
