The Australian premiere of McDonagh’s star-studded new film will launch the 2026 festival, while TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey joins a Feature Competition jury that includes Xavier Samuel and Tilda Cobham-Hervey.

Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, starring John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey and Tom Waits, will have its Australian premiere as the Opening Night film of the 2026 Adelaide Film Festival.

The festival has also named writer, director and actor Leah Purcell AM as this year’s recipient of the Don Dunstan Award, while Toronto International Film Festival CEO Cameron Bailey will be among the international and Australian industry figures deciding the AFF Feature Competition.

Wild Horse Nine marks the latest film from the writer-director behind In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin.

Set on Easter Island in the period leading up to the 1973 Chilean coup, the film reunites McDonagh with Rockwell, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

The cast also includes Chilean actor Mariana di Girolamo alongside Malkovich, Buscemi, Posey and musician and actor Waits.

Adelaide Film Festival CEO and creative director Mat Kesting described Wild Horse Nine as McDonagh’s most ambitious film to date and said its combination of comedy, moral complexity and international scope made it a natural choice to launch this year’s festival.

“Wild Horse Nine combines McDonagh’s trademark humour, moral complexity and razor-sharp dialogue with a sweeping international canvas,” Kesting said.

“By turns absurd, moving and audacious, this is event cinema from one of the great storytellers of our time. Adelaide Film Festival is proud to present the Australian premiere of Wild Horse Nine as our Opening Night celebration, reinforcing the power of cinema at a time when global leaders must take heed of history.”

The Opening Night screening will take place at Adelaide’s Capri Theatre, preceded by the festival’s Pink Carpet. The celebration will continue after the screening with an Opening Night party at the historic Queens Theatre.

Kesting said this year’s Opening Night would also introduce some of the festival’s first major guests.

“It’s always a special moment when we get to announce Opening Night — one of Adelaide’s biggest party events of the year — and also the first of our guests attending the Festival; this year led by the incomparable Leah Purcell and our incredibly talented Feature Competition Jury,” he said.

“We look forward to welcoming interstate and overseas guests alongside the many South Australian filmmakers who will be presenting their films at AFF 2026.”

Leah Purcell to Receive Don Dunstan Award

Purcell will receive the festival’s annual Don Dunstan Award, presented in 2026 in partnership with Adelaide University.

A proud Goa-Gunggari-Wakka Wakka Murri woman from Queensland, Purcell has built one of the most distinctive careers in Australian screen and theatre, working across writing, directing, producing and acting.

Her debut feature as writer, director, producer and lead actor, The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson, premiered at SXSW in 2021. The work has continued to evolve across forms, with The Drover’s Wife – The Opera premiering at Brisbane’s QPAC in 2025 before a season at the Sydney Opera House in August 2026.

Purcell’s acting career stretches back decades and includes film roles in Lantana, The Proposition, Jindabyne and The Last Cab to Darwin. Her television credits include Police Rescue, Redfern Now, Janet King, Wentworth, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and High Country.

The Don Dunstan Award recognises an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the Australian screen industry and takes its name from the former South Australian premier, whose cultural and social reforms helped shape the state’s arts landscape.

Purcell said receiving an award bearing Dunstan’s name carried particular significance.

“I am beyond honoured to be the recipient of the 2026 Don Dunstan Award,” she said. “Knowing a little bit about the person that this award is named after, Don Dunstan, he was ahead of his time with cultural and social beliefs and a progressive supporter of the arts especially in the 1970s.”

Purcell said the list of previous recipients included filmmakers and collaborators she had worked with throughout her career.

“I am immensely proud of this award; it is right up there with anything I’ve ever achieved or done in my career thus far,” she said. “Thank you to the Adelaide Film Festival and Board for selecting me. This truly is an honour.”

As part of the celebration, Adelaide University will host an in-conversation event with Purcell, moderated by playwright and director Professor Wesley Enoch.

Professor Craig Batty, Pro Vice Chancellor of the university’s College of Creative Arts, Humanities and Design, said the partnership reflected the institution’s commitment to arts and culture.

“Adelaide University has a strong and ongoing commitment to arts, culture and creativity and so we are delighted to partner with the Adelaide Film Festival to present the Don Dunstan Award,” Batty said.

“We congratulate stage and screen luminary Leah Purcell as this year’s recipient and will be honoured to host an in-conversation event, moderated by noted Australian playwright Professor Wesley Enoch, celebrating Leah’s extraordinary contribution to Australian screen culture.”

Writer Andrew Bovell has also contributed a specially commissioned essay for AFF reflecting on Purcell’s significance as an artist and cultural leader.

Cameron Bailey Joins Feature Competition Jury

AFF has also unveiled the five-member jury for its 2026 Feature Competition, bringing together filmmakers, actors, producers and festival figures from Australia and overseas.

TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey will be joined by South Australian actor Xavier Samuel, Malaysian filmmaker and academic Sandeep Ray, Adelaide actor and filmmaker Tilda Cobham-Hervey and producer Anna Vincent.

Bailey has spent much of his career with the Toronto International Film Festival, beginning as a film critic before joining TIFF as a programmer and eventually rising to CEO.

Samuel has built an international career spanning Australian and Hollywood productions, with credits including Elvis, Blonde, Fury, Adore and Love & Friendship, as well as Seven Types of Ambiguity. His more recent work includes Send Help and The Killings at Parrish Station.

Cobham-Hervey emerged through the South Australian screen industry with Sophie Hyde’s 52 Tuesdays before portraying Helen Reddy in the biopic I Am Woman. Her credits also include Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar, while her short film A Field Guide to Being a 12-Year-Old Girl won the Crystal Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Her feature directorial debut is due for release in 2027.

Ray’s work has screened at festivals including Busan, Sydney and CPH:DOX. He is head of the School of Humanities at the University of Nottingham Malaysia and the author of Celluloid Colony and A Flutter in the Colony.

Vincent’s work across narrative and documentary filmmaking has premiered at Cannes, Sundance, Berlin and Tribeca. Seven of her films have screened at Adelaide Film Festival, most recently The Speedway Murders, which was supported by the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund and received multiple AACTA nominations.

The five jurors will also be among the guests attending the Opening Night premiere of Wild Horse Nine.

The selection of McDonagh’s film gives AFF a high-profile international title to launch its 2026 edition, while the Purcell honour and Feature Competition jury place Australian screen achievement firmly alongside it.

For McDonagh, Wild Horse Nine follows The Banshees of Inisherin, which earned nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. His previous feature, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, earned seven Oscar nominations and acting wins for Frances McDormand and Rockwell.

With Wild Horse Nine opening the festival and Purcell being recognised for a body of work spanning film, television, theatre and opera, AFF’s 2026 launch brings together international prestige and one of the most significant creative careers in contemporary Australian storytelling.