By Callum Ludwig
The Warburton Film Festival is coming up, spanning three days from Friday 16 June to Sunday 18 June.
A selection of eight films produced locally and around the world will be on show at the Warburton Arts Centre over the festival weekend.
President of the Yarra Ranges Film Society Vivienne Bond said it’s a refreshing change from visiting a mainstream cinema.
“The current offerings in mainstream cinemas now seem to be very limited, to the large blockbuster films, the fantasy films or the large franchises like Marvel,” she said.
“While there’s nothing wrong with that, we seem to be lacking the variety of films that are made about real people that somebody has to actually write a meaningful script and a meaningful story for.”
The following eight films will be screening as part of the festival: ‘Lost in Melbourne’ (Australia), ‘Farewell, Mr Haffman’ (France), ‘The Quiet Girl’ (Ireland), ‘A Stitch in Time’ (Australia), ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’ (Australia/USA), ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ (Bosnia and Herzegovina), ‘Marcel The Shell with Shoes On’ (USA) and ‘A Son’ (Tunisia).
Ms Bond said film festivals provide a different experience and greater variety.
“People look at a film and say, oh, ‘We’ve got one from Bosnia, what do filmmakers do there? And I think they get a real surprise that there is so much good work coming out from those countries,” she said.
“It’s just completely different to the usual American offerings.”
The Show Us Your Shorts (SUYS) competition will also be running as part of the festival, with the best short films by aspiring filmmakers being screened before the feature films. The prize winners will be awarded on Sunday 18 June.
Ms Bond said the return of the festival after Covid last year was terrific.
“We were concerned that even though we were allowed to run the festival again, a number of people would stay away because they were still worried about the pandemic or just weren’t used to getting out of their homes and going places,” she said.
“Particularly with the way streaming and home viewing has been used and is still being used, there were some doubts whether people would embrace a film festival, but they did and it was just a marvellous feeling.”
More information about the films, screening times and a booking link can be found at www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/Experience/Events/Warburton-Film-Festival-2023.
