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Industry report detailing the findings of mapping the Queensland film festival landscape from 2018 to 2020.

Industry report detailing the findings of mapping the Queensland film festival landscape from 2018 to 2020.

In Australia, the most visible film festivals are clustered around urban centres, yet there is a flourishing network of film festivals outside of major cities. In the state of Queensland, the festivals in regional and rural areas provide crucial visibility for the industry, local community and emerging filmmakers. Following the growth in film festival scholarship, and research on global digital distribution, the impetus for this research was to examine why so many film festivals continue to operate in Queensland. Using a broader mapping project as context, this paper examines how the specificity of place shapes the identity of two case study festivals, their audience, and connection to community. The research identifies three key concerns: the distinctions between regional and metropolitan festivals; the duality of these festivals as both inward and outward facing events; and the challenges of viability that face the future of Queensland’s festival sector. In 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic caused further disruption to the national and international screen industries. While this upheaval continues to affect the screen industry, it is important to understand the role that film festivals already play in cultivating and sustaining local audiences and communities, and consider strategies to support their ongoing viability.

In the midst of drought in Central Queensland, the small town of Winton triples its population for the Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival. Even when facing challenges, the local community values the way the festival brings the community together, injects tourist dollars into the local economy and provides visibility to the local screen industry. However, staging a film festival in a regional location can be challenging. There are often less local funding and sponsorship opportunities available and the geographical distances involved increase pressure on time, resources and costs. Combined with increasingly accessible digital content and changing audience habits, regional film festivals face significant disadvantages in comparison to their metropolitan counterparts. This article examines the role of Queensland's film festival network, focusing on how regional festivals are central to the development of the screen industry beyond the metropolitan centres. The research is based on a mapping project of film festivals in Queensland undertaken in 2018, which included interviews with festival organisers and industry professionals. 68 active festivals were identified across Queensland, of which 45% took place in Brisbane. This article investigates both the value of film festivals and the challenges for their economic sustainability in Queensland's screen culture and industry.

The global screen industries are rapidly changing. Digital disruption has altered the way content is produced, distributed and consumed, and ‘screen’ no longer refers to just film and television. Audiences increasingly favour convenient access to content over remaining loyal to established providers or watching on particular devices/platforms (Nielson 2016). Despite this ongoing state of change, screen – and we consider that term broadly – remains an integral part of how we consume and create popular culture. Access to popular culture is increasingly pervasive and all-consuming for audiences, signalling what Jenkins et al. (2013) identify as ‘spreadable media’ in which circulation (or participatory sharing of content) is becoming more meaningful than distribution of content. This shift has led to greater demand for new content, niche content and the revival of many nostalgic forms of popular culture. This issue of the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture examines the theme of ‘Screening Popular Culture’...

Directed by Mairi Cameron, and written and produced by Stephen Lance, The Second (2018) was funded, developed and produced under the Screen Queensland Originals Fully Funded Features program, in partnership with the streaming service Stan.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary, the return of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Musical to Australia was marked by the recreation of an iconic scene. Mitzi, Felicia and Bernadette, in full drag, posing triumphantly atop the entrance of one of the country’s oldest theatres, the Regent Theatre, Melbourne. Following a successful international run, Priscilla opened in Melbourne on January 30, 2018, and will subsequently travel to Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane.

As an art form, film has arguably always functioned as a stronghold for memory. Memories unfold in the stories told on screen, and remain preserved in the experiences of the audience viewing the film, at a particular time and place. The environment of a film festival further alters the viewing experience and its relationship to memory. The Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF) was founded in 1992. After considerable disruption due to economic and socio-political changes, it took place for the last time in 2013. The change in BIFF’s leadership and programming agenda significantly impacted the festival’s image and its position on the wider festival circuit. Through an examination of cinema and memory) it will be argued that film festivals operate as (temporary) sites of memory, through the programming and screening of films, engagement with local audiences, and promotion of film culture. This specific and unique ‘festival memory’ inextricably links to the audience and the venue, and is curated by the festival programmers and staff, who carry a wealth of knowledge (not necessarily recorded), of past festivals, successes, and failures. The people involved, the festival staff and audience, act as caretakers of this ‘festival memory.’ This essay will therefore examine how the BIFF and its home, the Regent Theatre, have functioned as crucial ‘sites of memory’ for film and film culture in Brisbane, Australia.

In 2012, the Brisbane International Film Festival officially came of age, celebrating its twenty-first birthday. The festival has emerged from a tumultuous adolescence and redefined its position on the Australian festival circuit as an advocate of locally made films and documentary filmmaking in particular. Brisbane’s International Film Festival opened in 1992 and has since been attended by more than 400,000 filmgoers. The festival is held annually and showcases a diverse range of feature films, documentaries, short films, animation and experimental work, children’s films and retrospectives.

The rapid expansion of the international film festival circuit has included the loss of smaller, but well established festivals, often due to the perceived need for constant innovation and change. The Brisbane International Film Festival was founded in 1992. After considerable disruption to the festival’s leadership, programme and location due to economic and socio-political changes, it was held for the last time in 2013. Nafus and Anderson cite the term ‘lieux de memoire’, meaning ‘sites of memory’, as a place of “remembrance that exist(s) in a social world that constantly seeks to get ahead of itself, to “innovate” (Nafus and Anderson in Cefkin 2009, 141). The concept of ‘festival memory’ has not yet been explored in any depth, but such significant shifts in festivals such as BIFF are arguably sites where festival histories and identities, and film knowledge itself, can be irretrievably lost.

Organisations at the centre of the state’s industry, such as Screen Queensland, have undergone substantial and ongoing changes in the last five years. Other organisations funded by Screen Queensland, such as QPIX, Queensland’s only film development centre, have recently closed. The Brisbane International Film Festival has been restructured to become the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival as of 2014. In an uncertain industry currently characterised by limited funding and diminishing support structures, local emerging filmmakers require significant initiatives and a sophisticated understanding of how to best utilise fledgling distribution models as part of a tailored strategy for their content. This essay includes interviews with emerging Brisbane filmmakers who have used a combination of traditional and contemporary approaches to exhibition and distribution thus far in their careers. It argues that for these filmmakers, while film festivals do function as crucial platforms for exposure, in the current digital market they cannot be relied upon as the only platform in securing further mainstream or commercial release. They can, however, be incorporated into an alternative distribution model that shows awareness of the contemporary situation in Australia. The research findings are arguably indicative of the challenges faced by filmmakers statewide, and suggest that further support strategies need to be considered to revive Queensland’s film culture and provide immediate support for emerging filmmakers. Queensland’s film sector is currently in the midst of significant change.

This Media Arts-POP implements Media Arts curriculum in a Year 4 classroom at Waterford West State School, Queensland. While media arts form was the lead area for this package, students developed knowledge of and skills in English, visual arts and some elements of music. In the media arts elements, students learned to use media production equipment (in this case iPads, although other tablets could be used), and to use techniques such as composition and lighting to capture digital images and to record voice and sound effects. The package demonstrates that a number of curriculum areas can be combined to ensure that various curriculum areas are covered without losing the specificity of any one area.

International Film Festivals act as important sites for the exhibition of contemporary world cinema. Film festivals represent an increasingly transnational film culture, where audiences, filmmakers, distributors, press, critics and academics come together from all over the world to discover new films, network with one another and debate about the past, present and future of cinema. This research project investigates the role that international film festivals play within the wider international film industry, with a specific focus on emerging women filmmakers. It therefore explores the arena of contemporary women.s cinema at its intersection with the international film festival industry. The significance and original contribution of the research is its intervention in the growing field of film festival studies through a specific investigation of how international film festivals support emerging women filmmakers. The positioning of the research at the intersection of feminist film theory and festival research within the broader context of transnational cinema allows the examination of each festival, the attending filmmakers and their films to be addressed within a more refined and nuanced lens. A core method for the thesis is the close textual analysis of particular emerging women filmmakers. films which are screened at the respective festivals. The research also utilises the qualitative research strategies of the case study and the interview to ¡°seek to understand the context or setting of the participants through visiting this context and gathering information personally¡± (Creswell 2003, 9). The textual analysis is used in dialogue with the interviews and the participant observational data gathering to provide a related context for understanding these films and their cultural meanings, both personally for the filmmaker and transnationally across the festival circuit. The focus of the case studies is the Brisbane International Film Festival, the International Film

International Film Festivals play a vital role in shaping filmmakers’ careers. This paper presents some initial findings from a current major research project, highlighting the significance of particular festival programming of emerging female directors from developing nations. Some filmmakers showcased at festivals actively privilege the voices of women in their films as a means of commenting on pressing cultural and political issues. Ironically, other filmmakers do not subscribe to the label of “feminist” or “woman filmmaker”, even if their respective films represent a strongly coded woman’s point of view. Tensions also arise inevitably when scrutinising women filmmakers from developing nations within a first world film festival context. The expectations of the researcher, the festival, film critics and audiences inevitably must negotiate with the original intentions of the filmmaker. This paper explores the significance of women filmmakers in attendance at the Brisbane International Film Festival (2009) and the International Film Festival Rotterdam (2010).