Best Of Australian Shorts 6 – 2026
The 6th of seven programmes featuring the best of Australian short films in competition.
Our home-grown talent battle it out for the prestigious Academy® qualifying award for Best Australian Short Film.
Screening: Tue 27 Jan, 9pm | Runtime: 111 mins | Classification: under 15 to be w/adult
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Mooncake
On the night of her family’s Moon Festival gathering, Lydia, a nervy Chinese-Australian, comes out via interpretive song—unleashing chaos, generational reckoning, and a torrent of long-buried family secrets, all while her younger brother films every second of this family-altering evening.
WORLD PREMIERE- Runtime: 11min
- Year: 2025
- Country: Australia
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Gobble Gobble
Seven year old Lucy is desperate to learn everything about Hungary and everything about her Nan. When a nursery rhyme from Vera’s childhood about peacocks and turkeys resurfaces they explore what it means to love who you are and flaunt where you’re from.
WORLD PREMIERE- Runtime: 13min
- Year: 2025
- Country: Australia
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Rapscallion
Claire and Anita escape an all-female cult and must make it safely through a desert allegedly full of monsters. When the traumatised teenagers find an abandoned campsite, Anita becomes so fixated on proving the existence of boys that Claire keeps the discovery of a murdered man in a tent to herself.
WORLD PREMIERE- Runtime: 16min
- Year: 2025
- Country: Australia
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Listen
A misfit 17-year-old high school viola student pursuing a coveted position at the conservatorium is faced with making an unorthodox decision in order to be truly heard.
WORLD PREMIERE- Runtime: 17min
- Year: 2025
- Country: Australia
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They Loved Us The Most
When his sister goes missing in Japan, a brother teams up with her teddy bear to solve the mystery.
WORLD PREMIERE- Runtime: 15min
- Year: 2025
- Country: Australia
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The Gathering Light
Based on ‘Birds and Fish’, the non fiction account of the life of acclaimed Australian poet Robert Adamson, The Gathering Light follows Clive, a poet and fisherman living on the Hawkesbury river north of Sydney, as he meticulously prepares to catch a jewfish. They say the original name for them was “jewel-fish” because if you split the head apart there sits, like a third eye, a little pearl-like bone like a gland in front of the brain.
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE- Runtime: 11min
- Year: 2025
- Country: Australia
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Mango Seed (芒果芯)
After an ordinary day at the produce markets, a Chinese working-class father is met with the announcement that his daughter is moving to another city to pursue her dreams. Faced with the approaching separation, they struggle to express to each other the words in their heart.
- Runtime: 14min
- Year: 2025
- Country: Australia
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The Eviction
A group of university dorm students tackle the ethical dilemma of whether or not to evict one of their own over a morally ambiguous offence. Does the punishment fit the crime?
NSW PREMIERE- Runtime: 14min
- Year: 2025
- Country: Australia