Celebrating 29 years, Flickerfest is Australia’s only Academy Qualifying and BAFTA-Recognised Short Film Festival, and the country’s largest Australian and International short film competition. Flickerfest returns to Camelot Outdoor Cinema in Mosman Park from Thursday, February 27 to Saturday, February 29.
Over the three nights Flickerfest will showcase the Best of Australian Shorts, the EU Short Film Showcase and the Short Laughs Comedy programmes. The Flickerfest programmes present a selection of entertaining, inspiring and award-winning films hand-picked from the festival’s 3,500 entries, giving local Flickerfest audiences the first look at the hottest shorts in the world today including some fabulous films from local Perth filmmakers.
The festival kicks off on the Thursday night with highlights from the Best of Australian Shorts. The screenings include the winner of the Best Australian Short animation award at Flickerfest 2020, Rebooted (pictured above), a film directed by Michael Shanks about a stop motion animated skeleton monster coming to terms with aging. You can also catch the charming short Chicken from Alana Hicks who was awarded Best Direction in an Australian Short Film at the Flickerfest Awards Ceremony in Bondi and Featherweight, produced and filmed in Perth from local Director Sam Lara and Producer Jess Parker is the story of Tas who takes up boxing in an effort to get away from her unstable mother and get closer to her estranged father. Perth Director David Vincent Smith’s I’m Not Hurting You is the heart-wrenching tale of a woman who enforces rehab on her younger, dangerous, meth-addicted brother in a last ditch effort to save his life.
Awarded the Academy® Qualifying Best Australian Short Film Award at Flickerfest Bondi is the stunning The Diver (pictured above), co-directed by Jamie Helmer who grew up in Perth. Father and son Perth filmmaking team Jay Jay and Radheya Jegatheva will be present to introduce their beautiful animated short The Quiet for which Radheya, who composed the music for the film, was awarded Best Original Music in an Australian Short Film at the Flickerfest Awards Ceremony in Bondi in January. Fremantle born and raised Lewis Attey’s Three Stories Inside A Rental Van is a quirky look at one rental van and the morality of the three separate groups who hire it.
On the Friday night catch the EU Short Film Showcase, featuring the beautiful animated Mémorable (pictured above) from France which was awarded Best International Animated Short Film at Flickerfest 2020 and nominated for an Academy® Award for Best Short Animation, taking you into the world of Louis, a painter who is experiencing strange events and whose world seems to be mutating. From Academy® Award nominated director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite, The Lobster) comes Nimic starring Matt Dillon and Flickerfest 2020 Best EU Short Film winner The Land Over There (Drubenland) from Germany in which some “odd wall” falls down, suddenly throwing everything into chaos.
Clever comedy follows on the Saturday night with a selection of off-kilter funny shorts from Australia and across the world with the Short Laughs Comedy programme. Highlights include the super charming The Jackpot, from Germany, highly commended in the Best EU Short Film category at Flickerfest 2020, the story of Albert who finds himself involved in a fateful game of chance that leads him to his true love, thanks to his best friend, the chicken. There’s also the hilarious The Tent from Norway in which putting up a tent becomes a fateful event for a dysfunctional family of four and the fabulous animation Division Series from Korea, set in a KFC where Donald Trump and presidents from various countries play cards in an attempt to win the last chicken basket. Peach, from Perth local Rowan Devereux tells the story of a socially anxious young woman who lands a hot date – the only problem is she’s not sure if it’s actually a date.
Check out the trailers for Flickerfest’s wonderful line up of films here.
Flickerfest returns to Camelot Outdoor Cinema from Thursday, February 27 to Saturday, February 29. Tickets and further info is available online now or on the door.
