DestFest is pleased to announced (ie totally stoked) two filmmakers to join the Week 2 panel discussion about short filmmaking: Sydney filmmaker Stuart Vauvert, director of award-winning 30 minute short Prada Handbag (and the one and only Heather Locklear Chocolate); and Tom Salisbury, a theatre director from Melbourne, and the director of The Interrogation Of Bryan - also an award winning movie (MUFF 08). Both Bryan and Heather will be screening on the day.

For more info on the Week 2 films click here, and more info on the Week 2 Panel click here.

Had a chat with an inspiring person yesterday - a 24 year-old ‘futurist’ called Liz Cahill. She’s one of the organisers of the Live Futures 2020 Festival happening this Sunday (Nov 11) at Victoria Park in Camperdown in Sydney (www.globalyouthfutures.org)…

She was quietly inspirational - intelligent, articulate, 24 (!) and utterly optimistic. Must be hard for futurists to remain so given that they quite often have to come up with doomsday scenarios in their line of work, predicting various outcomes for the future of the planet… However an optimist she was and is and I suspect she will always remain, which I admire.

When she was leaving she gave me a new thought - something I kind of knew but had never articulated, which was that people are now more creative in their lives than ever before… We all have cameras in our phones, we can edit and record and make movies on home equipment, write blogs, build myspace and facebook home pages, communicate creatively to each other - more than ever. I knew that but it hadn’t quite consciously occurred to me until she made the point.

Maybe that’s why she hasn’t lost hope. If we all make art - and approach it that way (art with a small “a”), maybe those ‘conversations’ we have with each other will add up to something great. And beautiful. And new. And r/evolutionary.

It’s a definite possibility.

Is anyone addicted to Love My Way like I am? Haven’t zoomed through a TV series on DVD for so long - LMW has become my secret addiction, object of my affection, “gulity pleasure”.. Call me bourgeois. Or call me a lover of great TV-Film-TV. Stoked it’s a local series - can’t think of the last time I had ‘white line fever’ over a local show. Hats off and ’bout time.

Having plowed through Series I & II (thanks to my friend Peta who got me hooked), when I saw the Series III box set gleaming and winking at me in the front window of a record store in Newtown, how could I resist? I rang Peta on the spot. The question? “If I bought it would she go halves because it was cheaper than renting it disc by disc from the video store” (In the meantime I had also run across the road to local DVD library to check out the economic viablity of the proposition).

She said “yes”. I went for it.

It’s tragic really. Sick even. I’m a Love My Way “tragic”. Truly, seriously… tragic. Time to get a life. Grow up. Stop living vicariously through art… Or not.

Add similar stories (or hefty rebukes) here…

I went along to a screening at Paddington Town Hall last night - was a bit of an unexpected film experience - not only was the film screening as part of a conference on home birthing (!) attended by hundreds of gee-d up women ready for a revival meeting, but Ricki Lake was also in attendance! (Yes, she of Cry-Baby, Hairspray and ‘The Ricki Lake Show’ fame). Sounds weird, but Ms Lake was the erstwhile executive producer (and one of the subjects) of said film. It was called The Business Of Being Born, an engaging documentary about ‘home birthing’ versus ‘hospital’ births. The film made a great argument for the former, intimating that hospital births were more an industry serving the bottom line of hospitals, doctors, drug companies and share holders than the health and welfare of mothers and babies…

Although not the focus of the night, one really interesting thing that did come up in the post-film Q&A was that producer Amy Epstein - also in attendance - was a small discussion about the virtues of self-distribution via the net, and localised community screenings. This thing is getting bigger… Like Four-Eyed Monsters, Iraq For Sale and Loose Change, The Business Of Being Born joins an ever-growing list of features and documentaries using the net as a legitimate and lucrative means of distribution. The idea being to target grass roots audiences and communities, encouraging people to buy a copy of the film and screen it in their neighbourhood, as a way to (in this case) get the message out, make money back and/or market the movie. The Business of Being Born is taking this path first before moving into more traditional means of distribution (cinema, DVD, TV).

The net can’t be ignored. If you’re interested in contributing to this very conversation come along to Week 3 of DestFest.

Someone asked me recently what my favourite place was… it’s a hard question to answer categorically: laying in the sun in the backyard, swimming in Victoria Park pool, wandering around the back streets of Newtown looking at the old places , standing on the top of the big hill at Sydney Park watching the planes land … It’s all pretty stock standard really, for a transplanted inner-city Sydney-ite such as myself.

But I do know my favourite recent place; somewhere I discovered as it evolved before my eyes. It’s a beautiful industrial landscape that’s big in history, big in scope and big in possibility: Carriageworks. Even before I started working on DestFest here I became infatuated with it - it’s one of those places that leaves a huge first impression on you in the best possible way. It inspires.

Riding past the site over the last year or so I watched its transformation and restoration. Its scale is breathtaking, so is the design, the history, all right there in the concrete and walls and old door jams. It’s uncluttered and unfettered and offers something to anyone walking past or inside. It’s a little piece of Berlin right in the Inner West’s backyard.

DestFest’s Exec. Producer Loretta Busby told me that before Carriageworks, before the rail yards, before any of this, this site used to be a meeting place for the Eora people - a destination where people would regularly meet up, talk, and move on. A place for people to come together, touch base, plan, communicate, share ideas, learn, have fun and then… move on. That’s what it was known for.

We decided to uphold this idea by bulidng a film festival in the same spirit. Destination is a place where filmmakers and artists of all kinds can come together, touch base, speak, share information and create a sense of evolution and community. A sense of culture. A place where it’s okay to discuss, argue, agree, disagree, debate, revere, celebrate, share and contribute to a cultural conversation.

While it’s shape is yet to be defined, one thing’s for certain - Destination is not about competition. It’s about recognising good work, what’s gone before, what’s happening now and where thing’s might be going. It’s about ‘contributing to’, not ‘taking from’. It’s about inviting people in, not keeping them out. It’s open, not closed.

Promise the next blog won’t be so earnest.. but it’s all a bit exciting really.

I hope you join us for the ride. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Destination Film Festival is here and I’m excited! Interest in DestFest is flooding in from everywhere. In talking with the filmmakers, many of them are run off their feet but are travelling long distances to be a part of it all. We have some amazing people on the panel and its going to be great to hear everyone’s spin on the direction and future of filmmaking in Australia.
There is constant debate surrounding the tug-a-war between culture and industry. However, DestFest  is not a criticism or an assessment of the cinema industry but rather a celebration of filmmaking in its most pure form. Short films are refreshing in that they are highly personal creations both in their content and in their process. It’s beautiful to see that Short-Culture is thriving - independent from the Hollywood concept of industry. DestFest is an outlet for discussion on a largely underground artform. Have a cruise around our DestFest website and keep visiting this blog as we’ll be keeping you updated with all the DestFest news!
Nicole. Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Destination Film Festival - CarriageWorks

The beginning Destination Film Festival or “DestFest”…This is the film festival you’ve been waiting for - one that really matters. Three afternoons of film and talk at Carriageworks.