by FilmInk Staff

THE AUSTRALIAN FILM FROM ITALY – TIBER SET FOR HIGH PROFILE PREMIERES IN BOTH COUNTRIES IN OCTOBER

Rome, Italy + Adelaide, Australia: Dominic Allen’s unique Australian feature film TIBER (Tevere), shot entirely in Italy and in Italian language, is set to premiere at high profile festivals in both countries almost simultaneously this October.

Securing prestigious Official Competition selection for both events, Tiber World Premieres at the Adelaide Film Festival (AFF), where it is the only Australian film vying for the Feature Fiction Award with a cash prize of $10,000.

Announced yesterday at the Press Conference at Rome’s Palazzo Madama, home of the Italian Senate, the International Premiere of Tiber will take place at the 7th Matera International Film Festival (MATIFF), with BAFTA Awards Executive Joyce Pierpoline serving as International Jury President.

Held in the spectacular Italian hillside town of Matera, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and 2026 Mediterranean Capital of Culture and Dialogue, the festival takes ‘Mediterranean, mirror of the world’ as its theme, inviting reflection on the Mediterranean as a place of dialogue, memory, and cultural exchange.

A warm, nuanced road trip in a vintage Fiat, Tiber sees grieving father and art historian Marco travel with his young daughter from Tuscany towards Rome’s iconic Tiber river. As they journey through the sun-drenched landscape, he gradually fulfils a promise he has long been avoiding.

The intimate and evocative drama is the feature narrative debut for acclaimed documentary and VR filmmaker Dominic Allen, who directed the film in his second language from the script co-written with award-winning Melbourne novelist Miles Allinson.

Made independently with a small, experienced cast and crew, the film was shot entirely on location in Italy including Rome, Florence, Cortona and Lake Trasimeno.

Working alongside acclaimed Italian actors acclaimed Italian actors Emiliano Campagnola (La nostra vita, Occhi blu, Il Colpo del cane) and Roberto Salemi (Fireworks, Baaria), Tiber stars Marcus J. Cotterell (Giuseppe Tornatore’s The Best Offer, Abel Ferrara’s Go Go Tales), playing opposite his real-life daughter, 8-year-old Uma Cotterell and partner Tamara Godivier in their screen debuts.

Based in Rome for over two decades, Marcus J. Cotterell is an Australian actor and filmmaker whose work spans theatre, television, and cinema. A rare Australian graduate of Rome’s prestigious National Academy of Dramatic Art Silvio D’Amico, he is bilingual in English and Italian, reflecting a rich bicultural artistic identity.

The 2026 Adelaide Film Festival jury comprises of Toronto International Film Festival CEO Cameron Bailey, actor Xavier Samuel, actor and filmmaker Tilda Cobham-Hervey, filmmaker and academic Sandeep Ray, and producer Anna Vincent.

Following its premiere screening events, Tiber immediately continues its festival run at the Byron Bay Film Festival, also in October.

Tiber was selected for the AFF goes to Cannes initiative in 2026, with the filmmakers showcasing Tiber at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film, the world’s biggest film market.

Tiber is a Windy Lighthouse Studios Production. Directed by Dominic Allen, co-written by Allen and Miles Allison. Produced by Margarita DeCoster, Executive Produced by Marcus J. Cotterell, with Joel Betts as DoP, score by International Emmy Award-winning Composer Rose Riebl, Sound from Adam Afiff, Editor Sarah Edwards and Colorist Billy Wychgel.

Writer/director Dominic Allen said: “I am enormously grateful to Adelaide and Matera International Film Festivals. TIBER was made in Italy, in Italian, with an Italian cast, and it grew out of the years I spent living and studying in Rome, where the city’s churches, ruins and sculptures taught me that the past is never simply behind us. A film like this has two homes, the country it comes from and the country in which it was made, and it means a great deal that it will meet audiences in both within the same fortnight.”

Adelaide Film Festival CEO and Creative Director Mat Kesting said: “Tiber is a stunning discovery that we are thrilled to launch in competition at this year’s festival. Told through the beauty, art and landscapes of Italy, the film is a moving exploration of the innate and timeless bond between a father and daughter. Tiber was selected for the AFF Goes to Cannes initiative earlier in the year, and we look forward to welcoming the talented and dynamic filmmaker, Dominic Allen back to AFF after his success with the immersive and innovative celebration of first nations song and dance VR Carriberrie at AFF 2018.”

AFF World Premiere – https://www.adelaidefilmfestival.org/program/2026/tiber

Friday 16 October, 6pm — The Piccadilly, Cinema 1

Saturday 24 October, 6.30pm — Palace Nova Eastend

MATIFF – https://www.matiff.it

Byron Bay Film Festival – https://www.bbff.com.au/tiber

Tuesday 20 October, 7pm – Palace Byron Bay

SYNOPSIS
Art historian Marco returns to Tuscany to fulfill a long-avoided promise, to take his daughter Lucia to see Rome’s iconic river Tiber. In a borrowed, vintage Fiat, they journey through the evocative landscape buzzing with the heat and cicadas of long summer afternoons. As they traverse sunlit valleys and ancient hill towns, a forest monastery and the streets of Florence, between them passes the particular tenderness of a father and daughter finding their way back to each other. The road to the Tiber, we come to understand, is not a summer escape. As they move towards the cradle of a civilisation, the rich world of art, architecture and landscape around them offers a way to release the weight of history being carried, to access grief, and to begin the fragile work of carrying love forward when the past cannot be undone. And at the centre of it all, the powerful Tiber: ancient, indifferent, still moving, and a world where history remains and beauty persists.
Director Bio — Dominic Allen
Dominic Allen is an award-winning Australian director and producer with a background in fine arts and art history. His work spans narrative shorts, documentaries, virtual reality, music videos, and commercials. He won the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) Emerging Australian Filmmaker Award and the Inside Film Rising Talent Prize for his short Two Men (2009), set in the Kimberley and exploring masculinity, isolation, and friendship. He produced Grey Matter (2011), a Rwandan feature directed by Kivu Ruhorahoza that premiered at Tribeca, earning a Special Jury Mention. His groundbreaking VR documentary Carriberrie (2018), narrated by David Gulpilil and celebrating Indigenous dance and culture, screened at the 71st Cannes Film Festival and won Gold at the 2019 Australian Production Design Guild Awards. He recently directed the feature documentaries Planet Wind (2023–2025 festival run, including Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, Greenpoint Film Festival Brooklyn, and U.S. premiere at Oceantic Network’s International Partnering Forum) and Planet Sun (2026, exploring humanity’s relationship with solar energy). He produced the short documentary Frozen Waters (2025), directed by Anastasia Fetisov, which screened at festivals including Greenpoint Film Festival, Byron Bay Film Festival, and others, earning recognition for its urgent portrayal of endurance swimming beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet as a call to climate action. TIBER marks his debut narrative feature as director, drawing on his time studying at the British College in Rome and his lifelong interest in the gap between appearance and reality.
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