Adelaide was the first Australian festival to "pursue a production agenda. The event’s integration with local and regional industries brought it into line with the model adopted by several major Asian festivals such as Hong Kong and Pusan."[9]
The second Adelaide Film Festival began an association with the highly successful Italian children's festival, the Giffoni Film Festival, which showcases new films to panels of young film critics. The Giffoni Film Festival was set up in 1971, in Salerno, by Claudio Gubitosi, who was then 18. It has been so successful it has been exported to other parts of Europe and North America, including Los Angeles, where actor Jon Voight is involved. The 2005 Adelaide Film Festival attracted the Giffoni to Adelaide and the director "hopes it will be a permanent association".[10]
In the second of two programmed lectures, special guest film scholar David Bordwell described the second biannual Adelaide Film Festival as one of the most friendly and rewarding festivals he has experienced.[11]