Following a highly competitive round of submissions, six original short films from 14 South Australian screen creatives have been selected for production through The Mercury’s Quicksilver Production Fund, sharing $157,500 in funding alongside professional mentoring support.
Funded by the South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC), the Quicksilver Production Fund supports emerging and early-career South Australian filmmakers to produce a short film while accessing mentoring, script development, production support, equipment and post-production facilities. Additional support from Country Arts SA through the Country Arts Foundation has expanded opportunities for regional and First Nations filmmakers.
The Quicksilver Production Fund has a strong track record of developing local talent and taking South Australian stories to national and international audiences. Recent success includes I’m the Most Racist Person I Know (writer/director Leela Varghese, producer Suriyna Sivashanker), which premiered at SXSW in Austin, Texas, winning the Special Jury Award, before going on to claim multiple honours at the 2025 South Australian Screen Awards, Best in Show at the Boston LGBT Film Festival, and a 2026 AACTA Award nomination for Best Short Film.
Other standout projects include Dragon’s Breath (writer/director Melanie Easton, producers Lisa Bishop and Poppy Fitzpatrick), winner of the 2025 AWGIE Award and selected for Flickerfest, and Finding Jia (writer/director Alice Yang, producer Maisie Fabry), which screened at SXSW Sydney and won both the Flinders University Short Film Prize and Audience Award at the 2024 Adelaide Film Festival.
A Bold and Diverse 2025 Slate
The 2025 Quicksilver slate spans a wide range of genres, from a genre-bending theatre adaptation and a live-action First Nations adventure-fantasy set 60,000 years ago, to a poignant observational documentary exploring the migrant experience through hoarding.
Two of the six selected projects feature majority First Nations key creatives: Battle of the Ancestors, from writer/director Natasha Wanganeen and producer Isaac Coen Lindsay, and Vermin, from writer/director Travis Akbar and producers Sierra Schrader and Travis Akbar. Recipients also include Alice Yang with her documentary One Man’s Treasure (producer Stephen de Villiers), and 2025 Hanlon Larsen Screen Fellowship recipient Hannah Moore with Hera.
The Mercury CEO Sarah Lancaster said:
We are proud to support an impressive slate of projects that demonstrate bold imagination and the ability to stand out in the competitive landscape of short filmmaking. These works continue the national and international success of projects backed by the Quicksilver Production Fund. We’re thrilled to champion such talented teams and dynamic collaborations, bringing compelling stories that challenge, entertain, and deliver truly original experiences. We are enormously grateful to the South Australian Film Corporation for their ongoing support of The Mercury in championing short films and creating essential opportunities for emerging talent to break into the industry.
The Selected 2025 Quicksilver Projects
Astro Gato
Producers: Manuel Ashman and Justina Ashman
Director: Reginald Ashman
Writers: Reginald Ashman and Manuel Ashman
Logline: When an incoming asteroid threatens to end all life on Earth, only a street-racing cat has the skills needed to save the planet.
Hera
Producer: Jarrah Murphy
Writer/Director: Hannah Moore
Logline: A woman chainsaws a fallen tree in the South Australian bush like she’s done a thousand times before, except this time, she chainsaws her own hand, clean off.
One Man’s Treasure
Producer: Stephen de Villiers
Writer/Director: Alice Yang
Logline: A Chinese migrant’s dream of a better life becomes buried under the weight of what he can’t throw away.
The Fish Rots from the Head
Producers: Alex O’Neil and Nick Muecke
Writer: Luca Sardelis
Director: Nick MueckeLogline: Six days before her parents return from holiday, Eugenia discovers she’s negligently killed their beloved pet fish. Eugenia would like to explain why it wasn’t her fault things turned out the way they did.
First Nations & Regional Grants:
The Mercury, South Australian Film Corporation, and Country Arts Foundation First Nations and Regional and Remote First Nations Grants:
Battle of the Ancestors
Producers: Natasha Wanganeen and Isaac Coen Lindsey
Writer/Director: Natasha Wanganeen
Logline: Two Aboriginal sisters, separated for decades to protect their people, reunite for a mythic journey across ancient Australia, where they must embrace their celestial origins and ancestral knowledge to battle a dark force threatening to erase their culture, family, and the land itself.
Vermin
Producers: Sierra Schrader and Travis Akbar
Writer/Director: Travis Akbar
Logline: Aboriginal ranger, Jarrah, ventures deep into remote Country to check motion cameras, only to uncover footage of a murder before coming face to face with the killer, Reg, forcing the ranger to survive a deadly encounter.
About The Mercury
With a 50-year legacy, The Mercury is a member-based, not-for-profit centre for screen culture in Adelaide’s West End. Proudly South Australian, it operates the independent Mercury Cinema and, with support from the South Australian Film Corporation, creates professional pathways for emerging filmmakers.
Its subscription model ($25 per month or $300 per year) offers unlimited screenings across Silverscreen and Adelaide Cinematheque programs, access to Script Club, Launch Lab and industry events, use of production facilities and equipment, script consultations, mentoring, eligibility for funding programs, and discounted venue hire and South Australian Screen Awards submissions.
The Mercury’s alumni include Emmy Award winners, Oscar nominees, a Cannes Special Jury Prize recipient and a Best Director winner at Sundance Film Festival. The venue includes two cinemas — the 186-seat Mercury Cinema and the 36-seat Iris — and is centrally located alongside Adelaide’s key arts and education precincts.
Centrally located, The Mercury neighbours the Jam Factory, Nexus Arts, The Lion Arts Factory, ILA, UniSA West Campus, TAFE SA, AC Arts & the Flinders University Festival Plaza : themercury.org.au
