Your bumper guide to the Capital Film Festival 2026

Posted on 29 September, 2026

Canberra’s five-day celebration of cinema returns with a bigger footprint, a new venue and a program packed with films worth leaving the house for.

If your idea of a good night out involves a dark cinema, a giant screen and a film you probably wouldn’t have stumbled across at your local multiplex, clear some space in the diary.

The Capital Film Festival returns from Wednesday 21 to Sunday 25 October, bringing five days of Australian and international cinema to Canberra – and this year, there’s a little more room to play.

Now in its fifth year, the festival has expanded beyond its founding home at Dendy Cinemas Canberra, with the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) joining as a new venue partner. That means more screenings, special events and opportunities to experience cinema across two of Canberra’s major screen institutions.

Festival Director Karina Libbey is back for a second year, with a program that ranges from dark Australian comedy and award-winning international dramas to documentaries, queer cinema, stories of resistance and some seriously unexpected premises.

So, where should you start?

Here are some of the films and events we’ll be putting on our list. But there’s a whole lot more to explore.

First things first: The Fox at the Opening Night Gala

If you’re going to kick off a film festival, you may as well do it with a talking fox, a foul-mouthed magpie and a very bad plan.

The Fox is Australian filmmaker Dario Russo’s darkly funny cinematic folk tale, starring Jai Courtney, Emily Browning and Damon Herriman – plus Olivia Colman as the voice of the titular fox and Sam Neill as a particularly sweary magpie.

The story follows Nick, a hapless foxhunter whose life falls apart after discovering his fiancée is cheating on him. Enter a magical forest, a talking fox and a plan to turn his life around that predictably goes very, very wrong.

The film has already picked up the Sydney Film Festival Audience Award for Best Australian Feature and the MIFF Best Australian Director Award, and the festival is giving it the full opening-night treatment.

The Opening Night Gala starts with arrivals at 6 pm, with the film commencing at 7 pm and followed by a Q&A with director Dario Russo. Expect music, canapés and drinks from festival partners Ambrosia Distillery, KAIJU! and Babich Wines before the screening.

When: Wednesday 21 October, 7 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas

For the fashion girlies: I Love Boosters

Boots Riley’s latest film sounds like it was designed for anyone who likes their social commentary served with colour, attitude and a very good wardrobe.

I Love Boosters follows the Velvet Gang – a group of women who shoplift designer clothes and resell them to their community at a discount – as they set their sights on fashion mogul Chrissie Smith, played by Demi Moore.

The festival describes it as a hyper-coloured, hyper-stylised absurdist satire of modern consumption culture, with a seriously stacked cast including Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Eiza González, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter and Don Cheadle. It was selected for SXSW.

Our take: If your cinematic sweet spot sits somewhere between fashion, satire and absolute chaos, start here.

When: Friday 23 October, 8.30 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas

For a love story with a difference: No Good Men

Set in Kabul in 2021, No Good Men follows Naru, a camerawoman at one of the city’s leading television stations, as she tries to leave her abusive husband and keep her young son safe while the country braces for the Taliban’s return to power.

After experiencing sexism at home and at work, Naru and her friends conclude there are no good men left in Afghanistan. That changes when she lands a story with Qodrat, the country’s top journalist – and an unexpected relationship begins to develop.

Directed by and starring Shahrbanoo Sadat, this political romantic comedy finds an unexpectedly tender and often surprising space between the possibility of love and the threat of upheaval. Selected for the Berlin Film Festival, it’s one for anyone who likes their romance with a little more complexity.

When: Saturday 24 October, 2 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas

For a film that will have everyone talking: Poster Boy: Becoming Zyzz

Remember Zyzz?

Fifteen years after the death of Aziz Shavershian, the Australian internet personality whose hyper-muscular image helped define an early era of online fitness culture, Poster Boy: Becoming Zyzz digs into the man behind the myth.

The documentary uses archival footage, home videos and interviews with Zyzz’s brother Said “Chestbrah” Shavershian and his friends to explore his extraordinary rise to internet fame – and the more complicated legacy of fitness culture, masculinity and body image.

It’s followed by a panel discussion, Storytelling for Change, featuring producer Tom Blackwell and Lucy Barrat from The Man Cave, with further guests to be announced.

This is one for anyone interested in the strange ways the internet has changed how we see ourselves – and each other.

When: Saturday 24 October, 1 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas

For your inner nature documentary nerd: Whispers in the Woods

Some films are made for the big screen. This sounds like one of them.

Photographer Vincent Munier – a three-time winner of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award – travels through France’s Vosges mountains with his environmentalist father and his own son.

Across three generations, the family searches for rare wildlife including owls, deer, lynx and the endangered capercaillie, while reflecting on their connection to the natural world and to each other.

Whispers in the Woods features cinematography by Munier and an award-winning score by Warren Ellis, and has won the César Award for Best Documentary Film.

In other words: big screen, beautiful landscapes, Warren Ellis soundtrack. Yes please.

When: Saturday 24 October, 1.15 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas

For something completely different: Whistle + Q&A

Competitive whistling. A documentary about competitive whistling.

Honestly, we had questions too.

Whistle + Q&A heads behind the scenes of the world’s biggest whistling competition, following producer Carole Anne Kaufman – aka the Whistling Diva – and an eccentric collection of competitors chasing victory and recognition.

The program promises a charming and funny look at a genuinely unexpected subculture, with director Christopher Nelius joining the audience for a Q&A following the 24 October screening.

Sometimes you go to a film festival to broaden your horizons. Sometimes you go to discover that competitive whistling is apparently a thing.

When: Saturday 24 October, 6 pm and Sunday 25 October, 4.45 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas

For an Australian story with plenty to unpack: Boss Cat

In Boss Cat, Sonja is a young woman with Down syndrome whose life is thrown into upheaval following the unexpected death of her mother.

As her independence begins to disappear, she meets Hakim, a fellow krump dancer who invites her into his dance community. Through movement and connection, Sonja begins to find her own sense of independence.

Genevieve Clay-Smith’s debut feature stars Olivia Hargroder as Sonja and explores disability, autonomy, community and the social judgements placed on people with disability.

The screening is followed by a Q&A with Clay-Smith, as well as a masterclass on Directing & Designing Boss Cat: Accessible Filmmaking.

When: Sunday 25 October, 12.45 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas

For the international cinema crowd: Fjord

A Romanian family relocates to a remote Norwegian fjord village, hoping to be closer to the mother’s family.

Their new life begins to unravel when their eldest daughter is found with bruises, prompting intervention from her school and the Norwegian government. What follows becomes an examination of faith, family, community and competing ideas about morality.

Directed by Cristian Mungiu and starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, Fjord is a Palme d’Or contender that gets into some pretty thorny territory around faith, secularism and traditional versus progressive values.

At almost two-and-a-half hours, this is one to settle into.

When: Saturday 24 October, 5.45 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas

For fans of cinema about cinema: The Story of Documentary Film

A documentary double presented by Stronger Than Fiction.

The latest instalment in Mark Cousins’ epic journey through the history of documentary filmmaking looks at the 1970s and 1980s – decades marked by upheaval, political impact and increasing social awareness.

The screening is accompanied by a special presentation of an Australian documentary featured in the series: My Survival as an Aboriginal, a landmark collaboration between Muruwari woman Essie Coffey and non-Indigenous filmmaker Martha Ansara.

The film was one of the first Australian documentaries in which an Indigenous Australian was directly involved in determining how she and her community were represented, and was the first documentary directed by an Indigenous woman. The NFSA restored the film in 2017.

It’s a particularly fitting pairing given the festival’s new partnership with the NFSA – connecting contemporary filmmaking with Australia’s screen history.

When: Sunday 24 October, 2 pm

Where: NFSA Acton

For something a little darker: Minotaur

If your taste runs towards morally complicated characters and films that don’t hand you easy answers, put Minotaur on the list.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, successful Russian CEO Gleb finds himself caught between political connections, pressure to support the war effort and the increasingly fractured state of his personal life.

When he discovers his wife is having an affair, the personal and political begin to collide.

Directed by Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, Minotaur is described in the program as an examination of corruption, complicity and moral ambiguity. It won the Sydney Film Festival Film Prize.

Definitely not the breezy Saturday-night option – but potentially one for the post-film conversation.

When: Thursday 22 October, 2 pm and Saturday 24 October, 3.30 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas

If you like your cinema a little more… bonkers

Keep an eye out for Jim Queen, a short, filthy and gloriously absurd satire about a Parisian gay influencer who contracts a fictional virus that turns queer people straight. Yes, really. It comes complete with musical numbers.

There’s also Wild Horse Nine, Martin McDonagh’s latest, starring John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey and Tom Waits, set against the backdrop of Easter Island and the 1973 Chilean coup.

And if you’re chasing a film that is both deeply strange and strangely moving, Dugina follows a mother and daughter farming cattle and making cheese in Montenegro as a proposed NATO military training ground threatens their way of life.

When: Saturday 24 October, 8.45 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas

If you love shorts

The festival is also presenting a selection of award-winning short films in partnership with the Canberra Short Film Festival, including Focus, Downpour and 7 Reasons Why.

For anyone who loves discovering emerging filmmakers before everyone else catches up, you can see them paired with films throughout the festival.

And yes, there is a Closing Night party

The film itself is still to be announced, but the festival is promising a Closing Night Celebration on Sunday 25 October, with arrivals from 7 pm and the film commencing at 7.30 pm.

Tickets include a drink on arrival, snacks and popcorn, with drinks supplied by Ambrosia Distillery, Babich Wines and KAIJU! Beer. The festival says the closing-night film will be announced soon.

So, if you’re the kind of person who likes a little mystery with your cinema, consider this your permission to leave one night free.

When: Sunday 25 October, 7 pm

Where: Dendy Cinemas