Flickerfest Short Film Festival Media Man Australia

Flickerfest

Flickerfest 2008

Flickerfest is Australia's only Academy Award-accredited short film festival. Founded in 1992 at Balmain High School which is now called Sydney Secondary Collge Balmain Campus, it is held every January in Sydney. The films then go on tour throughout Australia. The Festival Director is currently Bronwyn Kidd, and the festival is held on Bondi Beach. (Credit: Wikipedia)

About Flickerfest

Flickerfest began as a small local festival at the Balmain High School in 1991. Over the last 17 years it has grown to become Australia's only competitive International Short Film Festival with entries coming from filmmakers across the globe.

Flickerfest is considered in International circles as the leading Australian competitive short film festival and increasingly filmmakers view it as one of the main festivals on the world circuit. To maintain this high standard each year the festival director visits festivals around the world seeking new films most of which have not been seen in Australia.

In 2003 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science elected to recognise Flickererfest as a qualifying festival for the Best Short film and Best Animation categories of the Academy Awards ®

The honour of Academy Award ® accreditation will guarantee Flickerfest's international profile for many years to come, whilst also ensuring greater opportunities for our Australian short film makers internationally.

Flickerfest's national tour has become a very important part of the festival and started in 1995. The tour takes the main competitive programmes and some Special sessions to many regional and metropolitan areas, which rarely have an opportunity to view this collection of the best of the world's short films. The difference between Flickerfest and other film festivals is that Flickerfest is acknowledged as a quality arts event. Each year we screen Academy Award nominated films plus many other internationally award-winning films.

Thankyou to all our sponsors, participating filmmakers and to you our audience for supporting Flickerfest 2008. (Credit: Flickerfest).

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Press Release

Flickerfest receives record number of entries for 2008
Oct 08, 2007

The 17th Flickerfest International Short Film Festival, driven by MINI, has now closed its 2008 Call for Entries. We have had an astonishing number of entries from Australia and beyond, exceeding 2007’s entries with numbers well into the 1300’s. This increase in entries is yet further testimony of Flickerfest’s growing profile as the most important and largest short film competition in Australia, so thank you to all those who have contributed their film for 2008.

The Selection Committee is now wading through the many entries for final selection, and with such a range of genres and cultures represented it will be no easy task to decide the final 80 short films in competition. The Flickerfest competitive international and Australian programmes will be announced in early December and will be posted on the Flickerfest website www.flickerfest.com.au.

Currently undergoing preparations to shoot the quirky new trailer for 2008 are Producer Kristina Ceyton and Director Rene Hernandez, winners of the JVC Award for Best Australian Short Film Flickerfest 2007. Our exciting new look trailer and artwork will all be launched at Icebergs Dining Room and Bar, Bondi Beach on the 4th of December 2007.

Festival dates for Sydney are 4th - 13th January 2008, with the opening night kicking off on Friday 4th January 2008. A selected program from the festival will then tour around the country starting off in Byron Bay and finishing in Melbourne late March.

Each year Flickerfest is pleased to celebrate and showcase an array of diverse short films from the many cultural backgrounds that make up our festival programmes and 2008 will be no exception.

Over the coming months, we look forward to keeping you updated with each new development and our exciting plans for Flickerfest 2008.

Till then, best wishes from the Flickerfest team.

Articles

Film festival has a buzz about it, by Emily Dunn and Kerry Coleman - 3rd Jan 2008
(Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald)

The amateur film festival Tropfest is just around the corner but first there is Flickerfest, the only Australian short film festival accredited in the United States with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - that's the Oscars to the laymen out there. Now in its 17th year, the festival opens tomorrow night at Bondi Pavilion until January 11, with 85 films chosen from a record 1300 entries. Opening night features the first group of international short films but the first film up for viewing is by the Australian comedian, broadcaster, writer and filmmaker Paul McDermott. McDermott's nine-minute animation The Girl Who Swallowed Bees, featuring actress Pia Miranda, won the jury award at the Seattle Film Festival, screened at the Berlin Film Festival and, most recently, won an Australian Film Institute award for best animation. Saturday night's selection of films from the international category of the festival also includes an Australian effort, the nine-minute Spider by stuntman-turned-director, Nash Edgerton (winner of the Tropfest competition in 1997.) The director of Flickerfest, Bronwyn Kidd, said films such as McDermott's and Edgerton's demonstrated the profile of Australian short films on the international stage. "It shows the high standard of shorts we are producing … [The Girl who Swallowed Bees] was impossible to ignore because it is such a visually stylish and creative film." Other nights during the festival will see screenings of Australian and international short films and documentaries - most of them Australian premieres - with subjects ranging from One Of The Lucky Ones, a documentary by Australian filmmaker Wendy Chandler about the night she was raped by an intruder in her home, to an Icelandic animation, Anna & The Moods, starring the voice of Bjork. Kidd has also compiled three short-film showcases including a selection of international short films entitled Bad Girls and The Bold, The Brave And The Best: 30 Years Of Australian Animation, curated by Oscar-nominated short film director Anthony Lucas from the animations that have inspired his career. The collection pays tribute to the achievements of Australian animators such as Sarah Watt, Adam Elliot and Bruce Petty alongside screenings of iconic television commercials including Louie The Fly, Mr Sheen and Aeroplane Jelly. Kidd describes the festival as "a bit like Cannes … both festivals are on the beach. Although Cannes has more red carpet and glitz, they are both showcases of high-quality films." For details visit www.flickerfest.com.au.

Flickerfest short long on buzz at awards, by Matthew Westwood - 2nd Jan 2008
(Credit: The Australian)

WHEN a nine-minute film takes a year to complete, Paul McDermott may be wondering how long he'd need to make a full-length movie.

The comedian, television host and writer says making short films requires a similar discipline to writing short fiction.

"It's that process of editing or sculpting away to get the very kernel of your truth," he said in Sydney yesterday.

"You don't want to wax rhapsodic too much."

McDermott's animated short, The Girl Who Swallowed Bees, will screen at the Flickerfest short film festival, which starts in Sydney on Friday.

It has already been lauded at international festivals, and last month won the Australian Film Institute award for best animated short.

The film uses live action and animation to tell a strange fable about a 10-year-old who tries to kill herself by swallowing bees.

"Instead of ending her life, they form a hive inside her heart and the honey that flows from it gives her life and sumptuous wonder," McDermott said.

"She never experiences the dark thoughts that she previously had, because the beautiful bees have reinvigorated her."

Like McDermott's first short film, The Scree, The Girl Who Swallowed Bees began as a storybook that he wrote and illustrated.

Pia Miranda plays the depressed young girl, and McDermott created the nimations with Tony Melov.

Flickerfest director Bronwyn Kidd said 1300 films were entered for this year's festival, of which 85 would be screened in competition. "Australian short films are very strong," she said.

"We certainly have a nurturing tradition in this country for short filmmakers, at a state and federal level."

Flickerfest is different from next month's Tropfest short film festival, which requires that entries be made specifically for that festival.

Held at Sydney's Bondi Beach from Friday to January 13, Flickerfest includes competition screenings for Australian and international shorts, and a showcase of more than 30 years of Australian animation. Parts of the program tour to other state capitals and regional areas.

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