With just one week to go until the Adelaide Film Festival, organisers are burning the midnight oil in final preparations for the 11-day event that will feature more than 130 productions of varying budgets and beginnings.

This includes the nation's first screenings of major international releases, such as Roma, by Children Of Men and Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón, and the Ballad Of Buster Scruggs, the new Coen brothers anthology.

The festival will open with the Australian premieres of Hotel Mumbai by SA director Anthony Maras, a retelling of the four-day terrorist attacks of 2008, and The Nightingale, the second film by Babadook director Jennifer Kent which recently won at the Venice Film Festival.

Festival artistic director Amanda Duthie said both were among films partly funded through the AFF investment fund, a "unique" initiative that was recently replicated by the Melbourne Film Festival.

"The AFF invests in work with either SA producers or if the production or post-production happens here in SA, which is the case for both The Nightingale and Hotel Mumbai," she said.

"Other projects included in the investment fund this year are I Am Mother, which is a work in progress of an amazing new feature film starring Hilary Swank, and She Who Must Be Loved, which is a documentary about Freda Glynn, the mother of Indigenous filmmaker Erica Glynn."

The festival includes features, documentaries, animations, short films, virtual reality installations and moving-image works at cinemas and venues across Adelaide.

Some 40 per cent of the festival's films are Australian, with 22 of those made in SA.

Australia's I Am Mother, while still in progress, stars Hollywood's Hilary Swank. ( Supplied: Adelaide Film Festival )

'New-wave' filmmakers to premiere works

But as well as industry-supported productions, the festival will present a series of films created with next to no budget at all by what Senses Of Cinema online film journal founder Bill Mousoulis described as "Australian new-wave filmmakers".

This includes Adelaide's Allison Chhorn and her short film The Last Time, and Matthew Victor Pastor's feature Melodrama/Random/Melbourne!, which involves mainly Filipino-Australian actors in a neon-lit "pop-punk extravaganza".

An image from Filipino/Australian pop-funk film Melodrama/Random/Melbourne!. ( Supplied: Adelaide Film Festival )

Both will show at the Mercury Cinema, while across town at the Sax & Violins Film Society (SVFS) on Pirie Street, another feature, The Five Provocations by Angie Black, will screen, as well as two 40-minute films by Saidin Salkic called The Arrival Of A Phoenix and Silence's Crescendo.

"I use that designation 'new wave' to signify people who are up and coming, who are on the outside," Mr Mousoulis said.

"They are not established yet and are just trying to get a foothold in the film world ... that's what I'm interested in pushing."

Mr Mousoulis, a filmmaker himself, recently relocated from Greece (and Melbourne) to Adelaide where he has established the alternative cinema website Pure Shit.

He has used his long-standing presence and contacts in the local film scene to encourage the new-wave series among a program that will ultimately deliver 17 world premieres, 30 Australian premieres and 75 SA premieres.

Bill Mousoulis and Chris d'Antonio-Hocking are looking forward to new-wave screenings. ( ABC Radio Adelaide: Malcolm Sutton )

"I myself am always interested in the more radical styles, the more experimental cinema and the more hybrid forms," Mr Mousoulis said.

"I think there is a lack of innovative form and style in a lot of mainstream features, although there might be a few exceptions here and there."

SVFS co-director Chris d'Antonio-Hocking said the new-wave series was exactly the genre the independent cinema wanted to screen.

Silence's Crescendo is an experimental horror film by new-wave filmmaker Saidin Salkic. ( Supplied: Adelaide Film Festival )

"We are about having newer, more exciting, more interesting and experimental films playing here," he said.

"I think there really needs to be a lot more focus on that [in the festival] and I hope it keeps building every year."

Mr Mousoulis's other festival tips include the Australian films Celeste by Ben Hackworth, Happy Sad Man by Genevieve Bailey, and Terror Nullius by Soda-Jerk.

"AFF has also programmed some good world cinema in this year's festival, including a South Korean film by Lee Chang-dong called Burning.

"It's a really fantastic film."

Films launched from across the world

Ms Duthie said the AFF curated films from all over the world and its international reputation and "stature" enabled it to "launch a whole lot of films that aren't necessarily those we've invested in".

"Filmmakers have been happy to have the first presentation of their work here in Adelaide, so that means we have the new Coen brothers film and the new work from Alfonso Cuarón," she said.

"Luke Davies, who was the writer of [Oscar-award winning] Lion, and his new film Beautiful Boy [directed by Felix Van Groeningen] is also having its Australian premiere.

"We have an array of films made by artists from all countries of the world, so the festival just really provides this incredible showcase of master screen storytellers presenting their work here in Adelaide."

The festival has been running as a biennial event since 2003, but in 2016 a one-off mini five-day festival was held before its regular event last year.

Ms Duthie said the AFF crew also ran Hybrid World Adelaide, which took place in 2017 and 2018, and they were funded to run the AFF in both years as well.

From this year, however, the new State Government is returning the festival to its former biennial format.

The AFF launches on October 10 and runs until October 21.

After six years at the helm, it is Ms Duthie's final festival before taking up a new role as head of production, development, attraction and studios at the SA Film Corporation from November.