Adelaide Film Festival is South Australia’s premier screen event and one of Australia’s leading film festivals. An annual celebration of courageous cinema where filmmakers and audiences come together for two weeks of local and international film premieres alongside workshops, activities and talks.
The Balnaves Foundation, as Principal Partner, supported the Adelaide Film Festival Expand Lab (AFF Expand Lab) from 2022-2024 and the commissioning of winning films from 2024-2026. To allow the creatives time and resources to fully develop their work, the winning commission would be exhibited two years after the Lab. The AFF Expand Lab is a collaborative development initiative where filmmakers, writers and artists come together to expand their practice and develop bold new moving image projects.
The inaugural AFF Expand Lab, in 2022, saw 30 creative practitioners participate in the development and commissioning process ultimately resulting in the commission being awarded to Susan Norrie (NSW), Emmaline Zanelli (SA) and Matthew Thorne (SA). They were tasked with creating a new moving image work to be presented at Samstag Museum of Art during the Adelaide Film Festival in 2024. The three artists all shared an interest in exploring human impact on the environment and the nuances of human experience, particularly to do with the culture of mining in South Australia and fly-in fly-out workers. From this they created a series of three experimental docu-fiction moving images; I take care of what’s mine by Emmaline Zanelli, Extraction by Matthew Thorne and FALLOUT by Susan Norrie.
The 2023 AFF Expand Lab continued to bring together emerging and established creatives form across the country. The commission was awarded to Anna Linder (SA), Nisa East (NSW) and Yasemin Sabuncu (SA). Together they created 5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMAL SELF!!, a satirical, critical reflection on the trends of commodified, masculine ‘wellness’ in times of existential crisis. A series of character studies of ‘alpha’ personalities and fitness evangelists that populate the ‘manosphere’, the work examines the psychological mechanisms of rejecting failure, vulnerability and the pursuit of infinite growth at any cost. The work premiered at Samstag Museum of Art in 2025 as part of the Adelaide Film Festival.
The AFF Expand Lab moving image commission in 2024 was awarded to Naina Sen (NT), Naveed Farro (VIC) and Harrison Hall (VIC) for their collaborative project Through Line. Inspired by the communal and secular atmosphere of the Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah courtyard in Delhi, it is immersive, sculptural, multimedia installation that reimagines the cultural connections between West Asia and South Asia with a focus on Indo-Persian influences. Through Line will be exhibited in the 2026 Adelaide Film Festival.