For nominees, guests and anyone visiting
Our screenings are at Dendy Portside on the river and the Awards Night is south of the city at Sunnybank. Here is what is around each of them, what is worth your time in between, and the places in this city you have already seen on a screen.
Brisbane is organised by its river, and the two festival venues are on opposite sides of the city. This is the part worth reading before you book anything.
The river
Brisbane is organised around a river that loops through the middle of it, and the CityCat ferries are public transport rather than a tourist novelty. They are the most pleasant way to move between the city and the riverside suburbs, and the route runs past most of what you would want to look at anyway. Northshore Hamilton, at the eastern end of the line, is the stop for the screening venue.
Trains and buses
Trains, buses and the ferries all run on the same ticketing system, and the airport is on the rail line into the city. The southside, where the Awards Night is, is served by rail; the riverside north, where the screenings are, is better reached by ferry or road.
The gap that matters
This is the one piece of logistics worth planning around. The screenings are at Portside on the river to the north east, and the Awards Night is at Sunnybank in the south. They are not near each other, and they are not walkable from one another. Allow real travel time between them, and if you are choosing one place to stay for the whole week, staying central puts you a similar distance from both rather than close to one and far from the other.
Around the screenings
The screening venue sits on the river at Hamilton, in a riverside precinct built around the wharf, so there is food and a walk along the water without going anywhere. It is one of the parts of Brisbane that feels like it is on a river rather than merely near one. The ferry terminal at Northshore Hamilton connects you straight back into the city along the water.
Nominees with a screening ticket: this is where your film plays.
Around the Awards Night
The Awards Night is at Sunnybank in Brisbane's south, and the surrounding area is one of the most concentrated Asian dining precincts in Australia. Taiwanese, Cantonese, Sichuan, Korean, Vietnamese and Malaysian, largely in a cluster of shopping centres and side streets rather than on one pretty strip. If you are coming south for the ceremony, come south early and eat first. This is not a consolation for the venue being out of the city; it is a genuine destination that people drive across Brisbane for.
The dress code, run sheet and menu are on the tickets page.
A stretch of parkland along the south side of the river, directly opposite the city, with a swimming lagoon in the middle of it. The cultural precinct sits at one end, so the gallery, the museum and the state library are all within a few minutes of each other and of the water.
Australia's largest modern art gallery is at South Bank, next to the state gallery, and the two are joined. Worth a morning on their own, and both are free to enter for the permanent collections.
The civic building on King George Square, with a clock tower you can go up and an auditorium under a dome. It is also, as it happens, the most filmed building in the city - see the location tour below.
The old gardens sit on a bend of the river at the bottom of the city, so you can walk out of the central business district straight into them. Figs, boardwalks and the river on three sides.
Cliffs directly across the river from the city, lit at night, with a walk along the bottom and a lookout at the top. The view back at the skyline from here is the one on the postcards, and it is better in person at dusk.
The bridge that ties the two halves of the inner city together, and the thing most photographs of Brisbane have in them somewhere. You can walk across it, and you can climb it with an operator if that appeals.
Brisbane has doubled for other cities for a hundred years, and occasionally played itself. These are places you can walk to, and what was shot in them.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 2010 
Ticket to Paradise 2022 
Inspector Gadget 2 2003 
The Phantom 1996 The most filmed building in the city. The neoclassical front, the deco foyer and the domed auditorium have each stood in for somewhere else more than once.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 2010 
San Andreas 2015 The view that gets destroyed on screen. Stand where the camera stood, then look at what is actually there.
Unbroken 2014 
The Railway Man 2013 Riverside parkland with jacarandas and a rose garden, a short way upriver from the screening venue. Two very different war films used it.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 2010 Unbroken 2014 A nineteenth century coastal fort at the mouth of the river, hidden behind the port. It reads as almost anywhere, which is why it keeps getting cast.
Thor: Ragnarok 2017 
Daybreakers 2010 
The Delinquents 1989 
Swimming Upstream 2003 
Boy Swallows Universe 2024 Brisbane has doubled for other cities for a century, and occasionally played itself. Boy Swallows Universe is the one that is most unmistakably about this place rather than merely shot in it.
Details and imagery from The Movie Database This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.
About twenty minutes west of the city
The lookout over the whole of Brisbane, with the city, the river and the bay laid out below and the mountains behind. Go at dusk. The botanic gardens and the planetarium are at the bottom of the same hill.
About half an hour from the city, and reachable by river
The oldest and largest koala sanctuary in the world, on the river at Fig Tree Pocket. If you are visiting from overseas and want to see the animals, this is the straightforward answer, and you can get there by boat along the river rather than by road.
A ferry from the bay side of the city
A sand island in the bay off Brisbane, with wrecks lying just off the beach that you can snorkel over. A full day rather than an afternoon, and the reason to add a day either side of the festival if you are travelling a long way to get here.
About an hour either side of the city
The Gold Coast is south and the Sunshine Coast is north, and both are close enough to do in a day from Brisbane. The hinterland behind each is the quieter and, for most people, the better half.
Half a day
One day
Two days either side
One day, no car
Theatres, galleries, live rooms and the one high view you can reach on foot. Places, not programmes - what is on changes, these do not.
The performing arts centre
The Queensland Performing Arts Centre sits at South Bank on the river's south side, in a row with the art gallery, the modern art gallery, the museum and the state library. It is the densest concentration of things to walk into in the city, and they are next door to one another rather than scattered, so an afternoon here does not need a plan. If you are coming to a film festival and have a spare evening, this is where the city puts its stage work.
A power station that became a theatre
A 1920s power station on the river at New Farm, gutted and turned into a performing arts venue without tidying away what it used to be: the brickwork, the industrial volume and a good deal of old graffiti were kept. It runs comedy, theatre and live music, it sits in a riverside park, and it is on the CityCat line. For anyone whose interest is in how a building gets adapted rather than in what is on that night, it is worth the trip on its own.
After dark
Immediately north-east of the city centre and walkable from it, the Valley is Brisbane's late precinct: live music rooms, bars and the Chinatown mall along Duncan Street. It is a designated entertainment area, which in practice means venues here keep going after the city centre has gone quiet. Brunswick Street Mall is the middle of it. Come for the venues rather than for the streetscape.
For a rainy afternoon, or a child
Also at South Bank, and the one on this list that reliably absorbs a family for half a day. Queensland's natural history, the state's own story, and a hands-on science floor attached to it. Free general entry to the museum itself is the long-standing arrangement, though the ticketed exhibitions come and go, so check before you build a day around one.
Quieter, and free
At the northern end of the South Bank cultural row, and more useful to a visitor than a library usually sounds: free wifi, river-facing reading spaces, exhibition galleries, and a substantial film and photographic collection about Queensland. If you are here to work between screenings rather than to sightsee, this is the room to do it in.
The view, without the climb
The observation wheel at South Bank gives you the city, the river and the bridges in one turn, and it is the easiest high view in Brisbane to reach on foot. The parklands underneath it carry the rest of an evening: the beach-style lagoon, the arbour walk, and a riverfront promenade facing the skyline that is at its best after the sun goes down.
Precincts rather than restaurants, for the reason this whole page names places and not businesses: a recommendation from the festival is an implied endorsement, and a precinct is still there next year.
Around the Awards Night venue
The Awards Night is in Sunnybank, and the surrounding streets and shopping centres hold one of the most concentrated Asian dining precincts in Australia: Taiwanese, Cantonese, Sichuan, Korean, Vietnamese, Malaysian and Japanese, largely clustered around Mains Road rather than strung along one pretty strip. Brisbane people drive across the city for it. Arrive well before the ceremony and eat first - it is a genuine destination rather than a consolation for the venue being out of town.
Nearest to the venue, and the most walkable cluster, is the Mains Road end.
At the screening venue
The cinema sits inside a riverside dining precinct, so eating before or after a screening involves no travel at all: the restaurants, the promenade and the ferry terminal are the same few hundred metres. It faces the water and the working river traffic, and it is one of the few places in Brisbane where you can eat outdoors in September and be glad of it.
This is the venue for the screening nights. You do not need to go anywhere else to eat.
Under the Story Bridge
A strip of restored wharf buildings wedged between the cliff face and the river directly beneath the Story Bridge, converted into a riverside eating and drinking precinct with a park along the front of it. The setting is the point: bridge overhead, cliffs behind, city across the water. It connects on foot to the city centre along the river walk and to New Farm the other way.
In the city, on the water
The city's own waterfront dining row, on the north bank at the foot of the office towers, looking across to Kangaroo Point. It is the most convenient of these if you are staying in the city centre and do not want to travel for dinner, and the ferry terminal there puts you on the water in either direction afterwards.
Where the city eats on a Saturday
South-west of the centre and across the river, West End is the least polished and most-liked of Brisbane's eating precincts: Greek, Vietnamese, Indian and Middle Eastern along and around Boundary Street, a Saturday morning riverside market at Davies Park, and bookshops and record shops in between. It is a short walk from South Bank, so it pairs with the cultural precinct in one outing.
The screenings are at Portside on the river; the Awards Night is at Sunnybank in the south. If you are booking one hotel for the week, central is the sensible compromise. See the getting around section above.
Every nominee receives one free screening ticket per nominated project. It is yours to use however you wish, for yourself or for someone from your cast, crew or family. It does not cover the Awards Night, which is a separate ticketed event.
Attendance has never affected the outcome. If you cannot make it, record an acceptance speech video and send it to us by Saturday 5 September 2026 and we will play it for any award you are nominated for. Your film still goes up on the screen and your name is still read out.
It is spring here, and mild. Visitors flying in from a northern winter routinely pack for the wrong season and visitors from further south underestimate the sun. The Awards Night itself is indoors, and the dress code is on the tickets page.
Photographs of Brisbane on this page are used under the licence each carries and are not AFIN's own. Our own photography is of our own nights. Photographers, licences and sources.
AFIN 2026
Screening 1 at Dendy Cinemas Portside, Brisbane
