This week’s guest blog post is from Dungog Film Festival Director, Allanah Zitserman:
Stavros Kazantzidis and I founded the Dungog Film Festival (DFF) in 2007 with a vision to connect Australian audiences with Australian films. Four festivals later Dungog is the world’s biggest celebration of Australian films and the crowds are flocking.
With an eye on the future, DFF has developed and now launched two annual programs. Firstly, In The Raw a script development program that showcases Aussie screenwriters and is supported by Sydney Theatre and the Australian Writers Guild. This initiative has been running at DFF since 2008, and will now be held bi-monthly at the Sydney Theatre’s Richard Wherrett Studio in Walsh Bay. You can catch the first read for 2011 on Monday February 7 between 6-9pm.
Which leads me to our next exciting program, where we turn our attention to the youth of our country with DFF’s Oovie Student Film Project, a totally unique initiative. Here’s how it works: students from around NSW pitched their ideas for a short film based on the theme Tell Us Your Local Secret. A selection of the best pitches and their respective schools are then mentored by industry professionals through the entire process of turning their ideas into films. The finished shorts then premiere on the big screen at 2011 DFF (26-29 May) and are exhibited via Oovie’s network. We will soon be announcing the selected pitches, but we have been overwhelmed with applications.
There’s been a surge of support from the industry for this initiative including Oovie, Australian Writers Guild, Australian Directors Guild, Audio Network and the cast of the Dungog-shot Tomorrow, When the War Began. Lead actor Lincoln Lewis is our official ambassador (keep an eye out for him spreading the word), and co-star Andy Ryan lent us a hand starring in the promo for the campaign.
What’s captured people’s attention is the experiential nature of the initiative. DFF hopes not only to inspire and educate youngsters, but to help them realise first-hand the hard work and determination behind the filmmaking process. It’s this experience that we believe can contribute to fighting piracy. The more young people understand what it takes to create content and how the business works, the more they will respect the craft. My personal anecdotal evidence supports this: children of industry colleagues have told me that they are telling their friends piracy is wrong. I attribute that to these children having a real connection to Aussie filmmaking.
Our young people can be as connected to Aussie filmmaking as they are to sport. Every kid is learning and experiencing sport from the minute they start school. It doesn’t mean they all end up a Dougie Walters or Ian Thorpe but it does mean they understand the rules of the game; meaning they end up supporting, watching, interacting and loving sport. The same could be said with filmmaking. In the past there was a big difference between access to a soccer ball or tennis racquet compared to access to a camera or editing suite, but not today; filmmaking tools are becoming more and more accessible to young people. They can start experimenting and experiencing content creation from a young age and as with sport, they will understand the rules of the game and grow up as proud supporters of Aussie screen stories.
That’s the philosophy behind our mission at Dungog and we are fully behind the missions of our friends at IPAF. We understand it’s a tricky thing to convey how destructive piracy truly is, particularly for a small industry such as ours, but organisations like IPAF are doing just that through their new Accidental Pirate campaign. We can all play our part in safeguarding our cultural identity by raising awareness and taking a stance together. By developing a real connection between Australian audiences and domestic screen industry we can educate people on the real dangers of piracy.
