Australia has a number of festivals dedicated solely to short films, with major annual events such as the Melbourne International Film Festival and Sydney Film Festival hosting important short programs and competitions.
I am working with artistic directors Chris Rusculi (Reelgood) and Richard Sowada (St Kilda Film Festival), and festival programmers Emily Avila (Heart of Gold) and Mia Falstein-Rush (MIFF). ) to discuss the importance of short film production and screening. .
Read: 2024 Australian Film Festival Guide
training ground
Many of Australia’s great New Wave filmmakers rose to prominence with their short films, most notably Gillian Armstrong, whose 52-minute film The Singer and the Dancer premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in 1976 and won the Greater Union Award. won the award for Best Narrative Film. This was a stepping stone for him to become a director, who would go on to make “My Brilliant Career” in 1979.
More recently, Justin Kurzel, David Michod, Taika Waititi and Sophie Hyde all participated in the Melbourne Film Festival’s MIFF Accelerator Lab, a program exclusively for short film directors, early in their careers and went on to go on to make notable films. Supervised.
But what about these times when viewer habits are changing?
Impact of COVID-19
When talking to programmers and directors, the conversation inevitably turns to the pandemic, a crisis that has coincided with an increase in short film creativity and production. At first glance, this may seem counterintuitive.
The pandemic has caused a devastating disruption to Australia’s film and TV industry, but the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2021/22 Film, TV and Digital Games Survey results show short film production has increased by 152% since 2015/16. reported that it did.
So while the pandemic and lockdown hampered the exhibition pipeline, it also meant filmmakers could explore new ideas.
Richard Sowada has been the director of the St Kilda Film Festival since 2019. Much of the content we’re currently watching was conceived and written during lockdown, and even as short film directors were discussing their work in Q&As at this year’s festivals. he added. At the festival, “probably 80% or 90%” said the project started during lockdown.
Richard Sawada. Image: Revelation Film Festival.
The festival, which took place last month, received about 100 more short film submissions than the 2023 event. “At that time, the new coronavirus might have devastated the industry,” Sowada says. “But now all these movies are coming out.
“Experimental film is better and more diverse than ever before. I’ve never seen so many Indigenous short films this year. When you put them all together, there’s a critical mass that doesn’t exist in the commercial sector. You can see that it is there.”
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Bird Drone, directed by Radheya Jang Jegatheva and produced by Hannah Ngo, won the Best Animation Award at the 2024 St Kilda Film Festival.
social aspects
Chris Rusculi, who has been director of Melbourne’s Reel Good Film Festival (RGFF) since last year, says the short film festival has an evolving role in providing a realistic premiere of films before they are released online. . “In 2018 or 2019, your film will go to film festivals, and if it’s really successful, it might play in 40 to 50 festivals and then get a second release,” he says.
“But now film festivals have become something of a launching pad for online release of films.”
heart of gold
The word “community” is frequently used among short film festival directors, including Emily Avila of Heart of Gold International Short Film Festival, Australia’s largest regional short film festival based in Gympie, Queensland. These are the words that appear.
Avila said the main audience is not from large metropolitan areas, but people who have limited access to movies and film culture. Lots of school teachers, farmers, and retirees, and the programming involves “three or four groups of about 30 to 40 people meeting weekly to watch movies and score them on all kinds of scales.” This means that the filmmakers “get reactions from people who are unlikely to have seen the film otherwise.”
Marungka Tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black), winner of Best Australian Short Award at Heart of Gold 2023, Best Documentary Short Award at SKFF 2024, and Best Documentary Short Award at MIFF 2023. Image: St Kilda Film Festival.
MIFF Shorts as a career accelerator
The MIFF Accelerator Lab will select up to 20 young short film directors to participate in a four-day workshop with experienced filmmakers. There will be screenings, seminars and networking events covering the business and creative aspects of the industry.
MIFF program manager Mia Falstein-Rush said, “It seems like all the participants are becoming like a mini-generation of filmmakers,” emphasizing the importance of short films to the festival. do. “I think (the shorts) are a really integral part. If that part of the program were to drop, it would be extremely detrimental to the entire program.”
Agile, career-building, and community-focused. It’s no wonder that short films and the festivals that promote them continue to thrive.
