The second year of the initiative will support an Australian filmmaking team to produce a new short film set to world premiere at the 2027 Adelaide Film Festival.

The Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund and Pride Foundation Australia are again partnering to support LGBTQIA+ filmmakers, offering a $60,000 production grant for a new Australian short film.

The successful project will receive funding to move into production before making its world premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2027.

Now in its second year, the initiative is designed to increase opportunities for LGBTQIA+ Australians to tell their own stories while helping emerging and established filmmakers develop their craft and build professional screen careers.

Priority will be given to LGBTQIA+ applicants who also identify as First Nations, newly arrived migrants, forcibly displaced people including refugees, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, or those from regional and rural communities. Projects incorporating First Nations languages are also encouraged.

“AFF is grateful to Pride Foundation Australia for partnering with us to help enable new voices in cinema and support a diversity of screen stories to be told,” AFF CEO and creative director Mat Kesting said.

“We’re proud to premiere the inaugural commission, The Night Moses Died, as part of the upcoming 2026 Adelaide Film Festival, 14-25 October, and can’t wait to support another great project to be made from this new call out.”

Kesting said the festival hoped the initiative would provide a springboard for the filmmakers beyond the initial production.

“The World Premiere of the selected short film at the Adelaide Film Festival will lead, we hope, to the creative team going on to make many more screen projects — which one day may also be Adelaide Film Festival World Premieres.”

The inaugural grant supported The Night Moses Died, from producer Mimo Mukii, director-writer Lilah Benetti and writer Maxine Ellah. The film will make its world premiere at this year’s Adelaide Film Festival.

Pride Foundation Australia chair Ruth McNair AM said the partnership was intended both to develop filmmakers and increase the range of LGBTQIA+ experiences represented on Australian screens.

“This investment will not only benefit individual career development but will also benefit LGBTQIA+ people and allied communities in Australia through seeing themselves represented on screen,” McNair said.

“This is part of our greater mission to advocate for systemic change for the most marginalised LGBTQIA+ communities.”

Applications must come from a fully formed writer, director and producer team, with all three identifying as LGBTQIA+. The writer and director roles may be held by the same person.

Writers and directors can be at any stage of their careers but must demonstrate a commitment to screenwriting or have an existing body of work across short films or web series.

Applications open Sept. 1 and close Oct. 7, with submissions being accepted through the Adelaide Film Festival’s online application portal.