Written by Chris Swan
October 23, 2025
Perth Festival 2025 – Madman’s Picks For The Fest
Perth Festival is set to return in 2025 with the exciting announcement of their full program for this year’s festival.
With a stellar lineup of local and international films, highlights from this year’s festival include award winning masterpieces from Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Sundance.
Here are some of our top picks from this year’s program.
Tickets are on sale now for Festival Club and Industry member with public access this coming Monday!
The Perth Film Festival program runs from 24th November to 29th March 2026.
Check out the Full Program HERE
THE MASTERMIND (1 – 7 Dec)
‘Kelly Reichardt steals the spirit of the ’70s with a gorgeously rumpled art-house heist.’ VARIETY
Kelly Reichardt brings her unique sensibility to this 1970s-set art heist drama. Featuring an amazing cast of bright emerging talent including Josh O’Connor and Alana Haim, THE MASTERMIND continues Reichardt’s astute and insightful chronicling of pockets of American life.
In a sedate corner of Massachusetts circa 1970, JB Mooney (Josh O’Connor) an unemployed carpenter turned amateur art thief, plans his first big heist. When things go haywire, his life unravels.
SENTIMENTAL VALUE (8 - 14 Dec)
‘A layered masterpiece that director Joachim Trier has been working toward for his entire career’ INDIEWIRE
Winner Grand Jury Prize 2025 Cannes Film Festival
After the acclaimed The Worst Person in the World (Academy Award® nominee for Best Screenplay and Best International Feature), Joachim Trier reunites with Cannes-winning actress Renate Reinsve, along with his faithful team including co-screenwriter Eskil Vogt and an all-star cast including Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning, to bring audiences this intimate and moving exploration of family, memories, and the healing power of art.
Book Tickets
IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (22 - 28 Dec)
‘One of [Panahi’s] best and most personal films to date’ ELLE
Winner Palme d’Or 2025 Cannes Film Festival
What begins as a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences.
IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT is the new film from renowned filmmaker Jafar Panahi. Considered one of Iranian cinema’s greatest living masters, Panahi is one of the only filmmakers in the world to win the top prize at the three major international films festivals, with The Circle winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Tehran Taxi winning the Golden Bear at Berlin, and now his latest masterpiece, IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, being awarded the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
Book Tickets
DJ AHMET (29 Dec - 4 Jan)
‘A heartwarming coming-of-age narrative’ THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
Winner Audience Award & Special Jury Prize 2025 Sundance Film Festival
Ahmet, a 15-year-old boy from a remote Yuruk village in North Macedonia, finds refuge in music while navigating his father’s expectations, a conservative community, and his first experience with love — a girl already promised to someone else.
Uplifted by warm humour, lovable characters, and an unsurprisingly catchy soundtrack, DJ AHMET casts a welcome spell that reverberates long after the last joyous note.
Book Tickets
SIRAT (19 - 25 Jan)
‘A truly staggering and major film, one that has to be seen to be believed’ LITTLE WHITE LIES
Winner Jury Prize 2025 Cannes Film Festival
A father (Sergi López) and his son arrive at a rave deep in the mountains of southern Morocco. They’re searching for Mar — daughter and sister — who vanished months ago at one of these endless, sleepless parties. Surrounded by electronic music and a raw, unfamiliar sense of freedom, they hand out her photo again and again. Hope is fading but they push through and follow a group of ravers heading to one last party in the desert. As they venture deeper into the burning wilderness, the journey forces them to confront their own limits.
THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB (17 & 18 Feb)
‘Resonates with enormous power.’ THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
Winner Grand Jury Prize 2025 Venice Film Festival
January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A 6-year-old girl is trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her. Her name was Hind Rajab.
Book Tickets
THE TALE OF SILYAN (21 & 22 Feb)
‘Achingly beautiful… an excellent documentary and a ravishing work of poetry.’ INDIEWIRE
The new documentary from the Academy Award® nominated director of Honeyland. THE TALE OF SILYAN follows a white stork, Silyan, and a Macedonian farmer, Nikola. Their lives intertwine when Nikola, abandoned by his family, saves the injured bird from a landfill. As Nikola and Silyan form a bond, they find solace and companionship in each other’s solitude.
Book Tickets
MR NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN (23 & 24 Feb)
‘Unique in dealing with serious issues about war and dehumanization with a light, even humorous, and certainly personality-filled touch.’ INDIEWIRE
Winner Special Jury Prize 2025 Sundance Film Festival
As Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, primary schools across Russia’s hinterlands are transformed into recruitment stages for the war. Facing the ethical dilemma of working in a system defined by propaganda and violence, a brave teacher goes undercover to film what’s really happening in his own school.
Book Tickets
BIRTHRIGHT (27 Feb)
‘Impressive black comedy about the horrors of blood ties.’ SCREEN ANARCHY
Evicted and jobless, Cory and his pregnant wife are forced to stay with his parents. As the younger couple’s stay extends the parents become worried that their disappointing son will never leave the house. Desperate to prove himself, the edges of Cory’s reality slip away and he finds an unexpected path to success that detonates the family.
BIRTHRIGHT is a darkly twisted tale about a disillusioned generation and their chase for the success of their baby boomer parents.
Book Tickets
BROKEN ENGLISH (2 & 3 Mar)
‘BROKEN ENGLISH is not just a documentary about Faithfull, it’s a film which is fully infused with her distinctive spirit’ SCREEN INTERNATIONAL
A lightning rod for fame, scandal, and reinvention, Marianne Faithfull was more than just a muse. She was the face of a generation, and the voice that cut through it. Made with her full participating, BROKEN ENGLISH is an intimate and unflinching exploration of a fractured yet unbreakable life shaped by fame, creative genius and relentless public scrutiny. A genre-defying portrait of resilience and rebellion, Marianne Faithfull’s defiant swan song.
Book Tickets
DEAF (4 - 8 Mar)
‘A bang-on illustration of how cinema can be an engine for empathy’ GUARDIAN
Winner Panorama Audience Award 2025 Berlin Film Festival
Director Eva Libertad’s film explores an unprecedented theme in cinema: the relationship between a deaf woman and motherhood. When deaf Ángela expects a child with her hearing partner Héctor, her fears about motherhood surface as she confronts the reality of raising a baby in a world not built for her.
Book Tickets
THE MOUNTAIN BRIDE - VERMIGLIO (16 - 22 Mar)
‘Plays an extravagant, almost shameless pizzicato on the audience’s heartstrings’ GUARDIAN
Winner Grand Jury Prize 2024 Venice Film Festival
1944. In Vermiglio, a high mountain village of the Italian Alps where war looms as a distant but constant threat. The arrival of Pietro, a refugee soldier, disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever.
Book Tickets
THE RIVALS OF AMZIAH KING (23 - 29 Mar)
‘A new classic of the American South that hums with earnest adoration for the people of this region, what they do, and how they celebrate life” – ROGEREBERT.COM
Deep within the backwoods of rural Oklahoma, charismatic and musically gifted Amziah King (Academy Award® winner Matthew McConaughey) herds a bluegrass-playing band of misfits while overseeing the premier honey-making operation in town. When his estranged foster daughter unexpectedly returns, Amziah leaps at the possibility to renew connection and create a family business. But the honey game is ruthless, and Amziah’s rivals threaten to destroy everything he has built.
