by FilmInk Staff
Adelaide Film Festival has announced that the annual $5000 Change Award has been awarded to Steal This Story, Please!, directed by Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, a stunning documentary feature about journalist and Democracy Now! founder Amy Goodman.
Established in 2020, the AFF Change Award is for positive or environmental impact and cinema expressing new directions for humanity.
In announcing the Award, the Jury said: “Our information environment has never been more contested, captured by political and economic interests, and consequential for the health of people and planet. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal’s powerful Steal This Story, Please! arrives in this moment with a life’s worth of evidence that one person who acts with courage, honesty and determination to build collective awareness and action, can make an extraordinary difference. Amy Goodman listens to the people no one else is interviewing alongside the people everyone is. She covers every issue with the same unsparing honesty, and she pays for it in blood and arrests. What makes this a film of change is its demonstration of the power of critique, exposure of injustice, the importance of independent media and how much it needs our support, and most importantly the power of the people to overcome.”
In accepting the Award, Carl Deal and Tia Lessin said: “It is a true honour to have our film recognised with the Change award. Thank you Adelaide Film Festival for celebrating meaningful impact of art and truth. At a time when the president of the United States has labelled the press ‘the enemy of the people’, this is a critical time to encourage dissent, truth telling, and art that disrupts.”
The Change Award Jury – Professor Ariella Helfgott, Professor of Foresight at Adelaide University and Co-Director of SA Futures Agency; Dr Jared Thomas, a curator, archivist, researcher and award-winning writer of children’s and young adult fiction; and Emma Webb OAM, an organiser, curator, and activist who has worked in experimental and socially engaged performance practice, and advocacy for the arts and cultural sector – also gave a Special Commendation to Time and Water, directed by Sara Dosa, about Iceland’s retreating glaciers.
The Jury said of the film: “The plaque for the first Icelandic glacier to die says ‘we know what is happening and what needs to be done’. Whether we will depends on whether we, collectively, care enough. Time and Water opens a way into that care through the human experience of grief. ‘I thought I had more time’ applies equally to our lost loved ones and to our world. Sara Dosa’s film widens that grief to glaciers, ecosystems, cycles of time and water that connect us to every ancestor, and which are changing faster than anyone alive has seen. It immerses you in a way of seeing the world as alive and full of mysteries, so the loss is felt. We are living through collapse. Whether grief and loss become care and action is the real question of our time.”
Adelaide Film Festival today also announced the winner of the AFF 2026 Shorts Award, with a cash prize of $3000, is Baby Talk, directed by Lizzie Cater.
The Jury – filmmaker, Wongutha man Travis Akbar; director Alies Sluiter; and actor and filmmaker Anna Lindner – in conferring the Award said: “Baby Talk was chosen as best short film because of the clever and gradual reveal of the themes and the lasting impact of the visual language. The performances from the cast are exceptional and drive an unexpectedly moving story of love, family, societal expectation and the courage required to honour one’s own truth.”
Lizzie Cater said: “I am absolutely honoured to have my short film Baby Talk receive the Short Award at Adelaide Film Festival. As an emerging Queer filmmaker it means so much to have stories from our community platformed, let alone win. Thank you to my incredible team, especially my DOP Nisa East and producer Alex Cook who have been on the journey since the beginning, my superstar cast Essie and Priscilla, and of course to AFF and the team.”
Following last night’s Closing Night Gala screening of Matthew Bate’s Hell Has No Fire Escape, and ahead of this week’s encore screenings, Adelaide Film Festival also announced that 2026 has seen a a record number of tickets sold, confirming the community’s appetite for the best of South Australian, Australian and world cinema. There have been numerous sold-out sessions, including five sold out screenings of South Australian film Kumarangk: Sacred Women’s Business.
AFF 2026 also confirms a resurgence in filmmaking by South Australian directors; many whose careers have been supported over recent years through the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund (AFFIF). The strong South Australian filmmaker presence in the program included Hell Has No Fire Escape, Anthony Maras’ Hollywood debut Pressure, Jared Nicholson’s Aftermath, Ursula Dabrowsky’s (aka Sue Brown) Ruby Ruby and Lucrum, directed by Johanis Lyons-Reid.
“It fills me with immense pride to see this new generation of brilliant South Australian storytellers celebrated at the Adelaide Film Festival by cinemas filled with enthusiastic audiences. And I’m proud of the contribution the AFFIF has made in creating opportunities for local filmmakers, including First Nations filmmakers, and in strengthening our industry,” said Mat Kesting, AFF CEO & Creative Director.
AFF featured a strong First Nations presence in 2026, with the filmmaking teams for Kumarangk: Sacred Women’s Business, Lucrum, Manjutji, and Bukal Bukal in attendance, along with the subject of Bukal Bukal, Aunty Henrietta Henrietta Fourmile-Marrie AM, the recipient of the Don Dunstan Award, Leah Purcell AM, and the recipient of the Bettison James Award, Karina Lester.
Adelaide Film Festival earlier this week announced that the winner of the Feature Fiction Competition prize was The Smell of Apples, by South African director John Trengove, with The Balkan Cowboy, from Dublin-based Croatian filmmaker and visual artist Dragan Jurišić, taking out the Feature Documentary Competition.
The AFF Competition Jury gave a Special Mention in the Feature Fiction category to Fruit Gathering, from director Aung Phyoe; and a Special Mention in the Feature Documentary Competition to Tehran, Under the Skin, directed by Afsaneh Salari.
The AFF 2026 Jury (Feature Fiction and Documentary) was Cameron Bailey, CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival; internationally acclaimed South Australian Xavier Samuel (Send Help, Elvis); Malaysian filmmaker and academic Sandeep Ray; Adelaide-based based writer, director and actor Tilda Cobham-Hervey (I Am Woman, Apple Cider Vinegar); and Adelaide-based producer Anna Vincent (Golda, I Am Mother). Cameron Bailey was supported to travel to Australia by Screen Australia.
AFF’s encore screening program runs October 27 – 29 with repeat screenings of AFF’s opening night film Wild Horse Nine, The Man I Love, South Australia’s Kumarangk: Sacred Women’s Business, Fatherland, How to Feed a Dictator and All of a Sudden will screen again from next Tuesday October 27 through to Thursday October 29.
Details here: https://www.adelaidefilmfestival.org/news/aff-2026-encore-screenings
