I just want to point out and say this: I’ve never went to Sydney Film Festival.

I never did, and reason for that is because I’m not a giant film enthusiast. I’d rather go to YouTube conventions such as Vidcon, Playlist Live and Amplify, which is my version of a film festival since it focuses on online multiplatforms and so forth. But my university requires us to attend the festival and write 2 essays on our thoughts throughout the events and the films we watched. At first, I thought I wouldn’t enjoy it, that I would get bored and probably just wing the assignments… but I was mistaken as I actually enjoyed it. Not to the point where next year I’d go again and get like a multi-day pass, nope. It’s more on the fact that I just had a good time and it’s worth going if you really like movies and you’d wish to become a filmmaker yourself

‘But aren’t you doing a film major? ‘

I’m doing journalism as a sub-major. I want to work in broadcast media. The only thing that I have to be concerned about is the world around me and knowing who our current Prime Minster and State Premier are. But films are nice and knowing who made what just allows you to understand what their filming styles are like and how’d they’d change over the years (the last time I did this when a few friends and I debated which of James Cameron’s work is better, Titanic or Avatar).

I only attended 2 events in the festival, The Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films and the world premier of ‘Hope Road’ – A documentary by Tom Zubrycki (you can pretty much figure out what were my 2 film classes based on). I was required to watch them and give a review on my thoughts towards the films. I have to say, despite being one of the youngest to attend (based on observation since the people around me were elderly people and huge film enthusiast for many years), they were quite interesting and worth a watch.

There was a common theme shown from both of the events I’ve attended, and that is the theme of ‘Struggle’ – How each character has to overcome the obstacles and issues that they face just to reach their goals, fulfil their dreams or to just get on with life. And the various styles of how each of the films were presented and produced showed various was to interpret that theme.

Hope Road

 Yup… I met the people behind the documentary

Hope Road is the 11th film created by Australian Filmmaker Tom Zubrycki and is based on Zacharia Machiek’s vision to build a school in his home village in South Sudan. The film has been in production since 2012 and the story is still ongoing as there is more to be done. According to Zubrycki, the documentary is more than just a ‘fundraiser documentary’, but it also tells Zacharia’s personal story as a refugee and his determination to help his people back in South Sudan. The film also mentions the need for education (especially for women), gender equality for men and women, the conflict that’s currently occurring in South Sudan, and hope that the people who view this film would support their project.

The film starts off explaining about the conflict in Sudan in 1995, telling the results of the war and the amount of people who were affected and killed. We’re then introduced to Zacharia, a refugee who was one of the surviving Lost Boys of Sudan, as he’s on a flight to his home village. We are then seen the landscape of his village and throughout the documentary, we’re able to compare the lifestyle the Sudanese people in contrast to what we have here in the western world and how Zacharia’s personal life and the political conflict affected him from reaching his goal.

“Two things that kept the African people alive – hope and your own determination” – Zacharia.

This film reveals to audiences the struggles that the South Sudanese people and let audience realise the importance of women’s equal rights to work and education. Zacharia states that not many people view the importance of men and women working together and that peace could not be achieved without the participation of women.

We’re also exposed to Zacharia’s struggles as his domestic life and the ongoing conflict that’s occurring in South Sudan as well as financial issues, play a role on the delays and the prevention on getting the job done. But no matter how bad the situation is, Zacharia still believes that something good would come out of it. Zacharia still has a connection to his family and people back in South Sudan and this what drive his motivation to help them provide the education they need. What this film hopes to let people take out it is to let them know that there will always be hope, no matter how bad the situation is and that migration is more complicated than it’s seems as the migrants have a role on giving something back to the people that’s closest to them.

Despite the film having an inconclusive ending, Hope Road is a film that will put viewers to view the different perspectives of our world. They will learn that not everything is simple as it is and that there will be twist and turns as we go through in life; but also learn that there is always hope for them to succeed.

The Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films

Some of the films that I watched (via Sydney Film Festival Site)

The Dendy Awards is a short film competition where 10 films are selected out of the 288 that were submitted. This year, there were a range of directors and filmmakers, some have years of experiences, some collaborated with big media industries and universities, and there were some who just started.

Here are some of the highlights of the night:

Adele

Adele is a film about an African teenage girl named Adele who is an expecting teen mum and has to go through her family tradition of arrange marriage, unconsented sex (which caused her pregnancy) and how it affects her, her ‘partner’ and her family. This film deals with what it’s like to go through the toughest situations when it comes to becoming a teen mum and how it affects their personal life.

After all

A stop-motion animation film about a son’s relationship with his mother who dies from smoking. The film merges the two timelines of the son’s past and present to tell the story and was able to intertwine the two timelines to tell the story.

Brown lips

An Aboriginal film made in Western Sydney, with collaboration with the ABC, where two cousins who fall in love and the girl wonders what if they’d escape with each other. This film was slightly criticised by a few of the audiences due to it’s theme of incest. The use of emotion was well used and you could clearly see how much the two characters felt for each other.

Lost Property Office

An animated film about an officer faces loss of his job due to it’s redundancy. He works at lost property where no one collects their lost goods and it just keeps accumulating with dust. This short filmed has this steampunk theme mixed with a 60’s vibe since it’s on a sepia filter rather than technicolour. The film made it hint that the officer was going to commit suicide due to the loss of his job but gave a twist ending that was slightly unexpected.

The Wall

An illustrated animated film about a grandma and her grandchild who runs away from war and are stuck in a camp with a giant wall blocking their way and sold everything about herself she had for a better future for the boy. The film had narration which was very poetic and it symbolised on how it’s like to seek refuge from the war and the victims wanting to give their children a better future.

Each film shown told different stories using different styles and the audience had various emotional response towards the films they’ve sat through. The use of colour, lighting and music helped set the mood on what each scene is about and the use of symbolism in the animated films gave the short films a deeper meaning to its story. Some of the films had a direct plot that the audiences could easily pick up and some needed to be critically analyse to figure out what the main intension is. Overall, the films were inspiring and are worth watching over again.

Whether you’re really into films or just a casual viewer or just someone like me who just spends time on the internet, The Sydney Film Festival is worth going to. You don’t have to go every year or to all the events but just supporting independent films that were funded by Screen Australia, and seeing the final product after months and years of production, its worth attending. As someone who mostly enjoys the online platform, I was quite inspired to see what they’ve created and it did inspire me and I plan to apply what they did in their films when I work on my future projects.

So if you’re given the chance to go to this event, at least try to give it a chance. It’s nice to try something new for a change. And who knows, you may also be inspired to create something as well.