The Castlemaine Documentary Festival (CDoc) returns mid-winter with a nonstop weekend of boundary-pushing nonfiction cinema. The curated line-up features eleven outstanding Australian and international documentaries, including both world and Australian premieres.
From Friday 4 to Sunday 6 July, audiences will once again gather at the iconic Theatre Royal to experience stories that surprise, provoke, and connect. This year’s theme, Truth – you couldn’t make this stuff up, speaks to the extraordinary real-life narratives on offer – films that push beyond fact into emotional, political, and imaginative terrain. Whether intimate or epic, playful or profound, the stories on screen explore the truth in all its messy brilliance.
A highlight of the regional arts calendar, CDoc continues to put Castlemaine on the cultural map, offering a world-class film festival experience in a town defined by its creative energy and vibrant community.
Among CDoc 2025’s highlights is Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera (1929) – the groundbreaking, rhythmic and playful silent film that transformed cinema. Featuring an original live score performed by Moda Discoteca (the electronic offshoot of Underground Lovers) the collaboration was commissioned exclusively for the 2025 Castlemaine Documentary Festival.
Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story (an Australian premiere) recounts the life of fearless literary icon, Edna O’Brien, whose groundbreaking 1960s novel The Country Girls liberated female voices and awakened the wrath of religious Ireland.
While Soundtrack to a Coup D’État delivers an explosive blend of geopolitics, jazz and Cold War intrigue, all set against the backdrop of the alleged CIA-orchestrated assassination of the Congo’s Prime Minister at the time.
“The tagline for this year, Truth – you couldn’t make this stuff up, plays out thematically across a weekend of striking storytelling,” said CDoc’s Director Claire Jager. “From AI-generated cinema to clairvoyants, this year’s selection doesn’t only look at different worlds, but tries to enter them, breaching boundaries with approaches that are inventive and playful, audacious and strange.”
Opening the festival with a Victorian film created entirely using AI, Human Algorithm asks, can something artificial also be real? And closing the festival, the engrossing Look Into My Eyes is a tender exploration of life-changing therapy with psychics – where the very act of being seen makes the magic feel unmistakably real.
“These stories embrace the tangled contradictions of lived-experiences, with plenty of human centred storytelling hovering between fiction and documentary, like in Reas, a gritty and humorous hybrid musical where the subjects re-enact their past prison lives,” said Jager.
“There’s also real-life action unfolding fluidly, intimately, and often unpredictably, in places most of us will never find ourselves. And transformative moments where historical, string-pulling events mirror those of today.”
LOCALS, the Festival’s annual showcase of regional talent, kicks off at 4:30pm on Saturday 5 July featuring an outstanding collection of short films by Central Victorian filmmakers – and drawing ever-increasing interest and submissions each year.
Alongside the dynamic film line-up, themed parties, live music and Q&A sessions will ensure new relationships are forged and conversations linger, long after the credits roll.
The Castlemaine Documentary Festival takes place Friday 4 to Sunday 6 July 2025. For more information and full program, www.cdocff.com.au for details.
Image: Theatre Royal Castlemaine (supplied)