Adelaide Film Festival

The Adelaide Film Festival opened last night and will see the screening of more than 142 films, including 23 world premieres and 40 Australian premieres, over the next 10 days. Our picks include Warwick Thornton’s western Sweet Country, which earned a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival; activist Larissa Behrendt’s documentary After the Apology; Closer Productions’ comedy drama F*!#Ing Adelaide; Kiwi bird-fancier “flockumentary” Pecking Order; the award-winning French photographic road-trip doco Faces Places, and the Grace Jones’ biopic Bloodlight and Bambi. The festival’s home this year is at GU Film House in Hindley Street, with sessions also taking place at the Mercury Cinema, Palace Nova Eastend and Port Adelaide. Read film previews on InDaily here, and see the full program here.

Hybrid World Adelaide

New technology festival Hybrid World Adelaide is taking place across five days (until October 8) at the Tonsley Innovation District, with events, talks and exhibitions covering everything from “space and biotech, to gaming and esports; drones and robots; blockchain and cybersecurity; agritech and artificial intelligence”. Read more here.

First Fridays – Art Gallery of SA

Gowns by Paolo Sebastian. Photo: Meaghan Coles

Fabulous Fashion is the theme of tonight’s First Fridays after-hours event at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The gallery will welcome the upcoming Adelaide Fashion Festival, with a talk by designer Paul Vasileff and a display of his Paolo Sebastian garments. There will also be refreshments and live music by soul-roots trio The Wanderers. The exhibition Paolo Sebastian X opens this weekend and continues until December 10.

Bernard Fanning / Casey Donovan – The Gov

Bernard Fanning and the Black Fins will be showcasing songs from their new album Brutal Dawn (the companion to 2016’s Civil Dusk) in two gigs at the Governor Hindmarsh this weekend (tonight and Saturday night). Oh Pep! will open the show, which kicks off a national tour. Next Thursday (October 12), singer-songwriter Casey Donovan will be playing at The Gov following the release of her new EP Off the Grid and Somewhere In Between.

Alison Moyet – AEC Theatre

UK singer Alison Moyet’s Australian tour touches down at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre tonight, with fans promised a track list that includes both her past hits (excluding “Invisible”, which she no longer performs) and songs from her new album, Other. Singer-songwriter Steve Balbi will open the show, and tickets were still available last we looked.

OzAsia Festival

Music in Anticlockwise. Photo: Cheung Chi Wai

This is the closing weekend of the Adelaide Festival Centre’s OzAsia Festival, with highlights including Rising, a fusion of classical Indian and contemporary dance performed by Aakash Odedra; family show The Ongals: Babbling Comedy, which mashes together mime, magic, clowning and music; and Music in Anticlockwise, featuring Hong Kong sound artist GayBird and Adelaide’s Zephyr Quartet. The Lucky Dumpling Market on the Riverbank will continue serving up street food throughout the weekend. Read InDaily’s previews and reviews of OzAsia shows here and see the full program here.

Rabbits – Plant 1 Bowden

After selling out an Adelaide Fringe show hosted beside the basement pool of the Treasury Hotel, Steel and Brown return with Rabbits, a work based on writer and performer Emily Steel’s own experience of moving to Australia. The show is playing at Plant 1 until October 14. For tickets and further information, see the State Theatre Company’s website.

Atlanta – Bakehouse Theatre

Written by Joanna Murray-Smith, Atlanta is described as “a witty and absorbing play about six friends, their histories, fears, desires and secrets. And an unexpected death.” It’s being presented by the Bakehouse Theatre Company at the Bakehouse until October 21. Read more here.

Big Bad Wolf – Space Theatre

A table-turning tale – Big Bad Wolf. Photo: Tony Lewis

“A fun twist on a popular fairytale that will have you wondering why you were so scared in the first place,” is how Windmill Theatre Company describes Big Bad Wolf which it is bringing back to Adelaide for the first time since its 2013 premiere season. The 50-minute show, recommended as suitable for children aged five to 10, is at the Adelaide Festival Centre’s Space Theatre until October 20. See a video of show highlights here.

ASO’s Pilgrimage of the Soul – Town Hall

Pianist Saleem Ashkar will join the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for the first time in Mendelssohn’s “fiery and inventive” First Piano Concerto, the middle work in this Master Series concert. The program, to be conducted by Richard Farnes, begins with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Wasps and will close with Elgar’s second symphony. There will be two performances, on October 13 and 14.

Men Behaving Badly – Holden Street Theatres

Director Matt Byrne (Matt Byrne Media) is presenting four episodes – Bed, Marriage, Drink and Sofa – from the British sitcom Men Behaving Badly in this stage show at Holden Street Theatres until October 21. “Men Behaving Badly came along when political correctness was in full swing and helped swing the pendulum back the other way,” Byrne says of the program, which centred around two London-based, beer-guzzling flatmates. Show details here.

After Utopia – Samstag Museum

After Utopia: Revisiting the Ideal in Asian Contemporary Art features moving image, installation, painting and sculpture by artists from South-East Asian countries including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Many of the works come from the Singapore Art Museum’s permanent collections. Read more about the exhibition in this CityMag interview. It will be at the Samstag until December 1.

On screen

See InDaily’s reviews of the latest films screening in Adelaide:

Blade Runner 2049
The Battle of the Sexes
The Dancer
Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle
Patti Cake$
The Dinner
Victoria and Abdul