Brisbane International Film Festival will return from 27 to 30 November, bringing more than 60 films to venues across the city as part of its revitalised 2025 program.

This year includes a dedicated Indigenous Spotlight curated by Māori (Kāi Tahu) programmer Maria Lewis, who selected six films from Indigenous filmmakers worldwide.

Ms Lewis said her approach was guided by instinct and enthusiasm.

"I only program films that I like, and that I can really root for and really champion," she said.

"With the Indigenous Spotlight in particular, I really wanted to focus in on genre films.

"Sometimes it feels like audiences can be really invested in stories about First Nations trauma or First Nations pain, but with this program I really wanted to look broadly, globally, at First Nations anger and First Nations humour and First Nations joy and First Nations irreverence."

The six films in the program include 'Seeds', 'It Will Find You', 'Endless Cookie', 'Kōkā', 'Imagine' and 'Keep Quiet', representing a mix of horror, animation, drama and genre bending storytelling.

Imagine, created by Bundjalung man Jack Manning Bancroft and Apalech man Tyson Yunkaporta, is an animated feature following 15-year-old Kim and their alien dog Jeff as they move through collapsing worlds shaped by Indigenous knowledge and science-fantasy elements.

Ms Lewis said its originality made it impossible to overlook.

"Imagine from Tyson and Jack is such an interesting, weird, existential piece," she said.

"Stylistically it's so unique... I've never seen anything quite like it."

Endless Cookie, a Canadian animated feature directed by Shamattawa First Nations brothers Peter and Seth Scriver, follows two half-brothers - one Indigenous, one white - navigating memory, identity and family through a dreamlike visual style.

Ms Lewis said it offered an intimate look at community, belonging and mixed-heritage experiences.

"It's them talking about their different experiences growing up on a reservation," she said.

"One as a white kid and one as a mixed Native kid, and how that experience was viewed in the community... and how much they love each other."

She said Imagine and Endless Cookie show how Indigenous films can feel worlds apart yet remain connected.

"It just feels like those two movies couldn't be geographically further apart but there is so much more that connects us than makes us different," she said.

Seeds, directed by Kahnawake Mohawk filmmaker Kaniehtiio Horn, follows Ziggy, a young woman balancing a rising social-media career with a new contract from a seed company, who returns home to house-sit on Mohawk land and is drawn into a fight to protect her family's inherited seeds.

Ms Lewis said the film is a sharp, violent thriller led by a strong Indigenous woman.

"It's a Native American horror movie, a revenge thriller," she said.

"It's basically like what if Home Alone had a body count."

Paired with it is Australian feature It Will Find You, from Palawa man Chris Broadbent and Enzo Tedeschi, in which a woman inherits her mother's pendant and reawakens a family curse tied to a malevolent spirit.

Ms Lewis said the two films highlight a shared emotional thread.

"They're about being terrified of your ancestral rage, being terrified of being consumed by the rage of your ancestors," she said.

"That's something a lot of Indigenous people can relate to, especially Indigenous women."

Kōkā, directed by Māori (Ngāti Porou) filmmaker Kath Akuhata-Brown, follows Māori elder Hamo and young woman Jo on a road trip across Aotearoa, exploring connection, healing and cultural return.

Ms Lewis said screening the film in Brisbane held real significance.

"Kath Akuhata-Brown is one of the most important filmmakers of my lifetime," she said.

"Being able to screen this film, the directorial debut of an elder who has worked and contributed for decades, really matters."

The spotlight also includes Keep Quiet, a Native-led crime thriller set on a US reservation, directed by Vincent Grashaw and starring Lou Diamond Phillips.

Ms Lewis said it broadens the festival's conversation about policing, sovereignty and community law.

"He did this really gutsy Native American crime thriller," she said.

"It's bold, it's tense and it has a lot to say about justice and power."

Across the program, Ms Lewis said she wanted audiences to see the ambition, scale and confidence of contemporary Indigenous filmmaking.

"How I'm most excited about Indigenous cinema right now is how ambitious it is," she said.

"Just the perspectives and vision and stories of Indigenous women is like, that's the juice for me."

Ms Lewis said the spotlight shows Indigenous storytelling in its full emotional range and invites audiences to experience that range on the big screen.

Tickets are available now through the Brisbane International Film Festival website.