Who has more films? Bigger audiences? Better curation? Important premieres? ArtsHub's guide to everything you need to know Australian film festivals.
30 Sep 2014
Sarah Ward
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Writing and Publishing
Each festival is a unique product of its local environment, catering for its community and endeavouring to earn its own place amongst the range of other film-focused offerings tempting cinephiles all year round – but not all festivals are created equal. They may share common movies, logistical necessities, and the goal of enjoying the simple pleasure of moving pictures projected onto a screen in a darkened theatre, yet diversity rages.
So which city has the best film festival? And how can we tell? What separates an excellent event from an average offering? What’s a movie must-have, or, conversely, a cinema killer? This is not just a battle between Sydney and Melbourne; they may comprise the larger side of the scale, but there’s plenty of life in their smaller siblings. Every film festival has its strengths and weaknesses, and perhaps there can be more than one winner.
Sarah Ward is a freelance film critic, arts and culture writer, and film festival organiser. She is the Australia-based critic for Screen International, a film reviewer and writer for ArtsHub, the weekend editor and a senior writer for Concrete Playground, a writer for the Goethe-Institut Australien’s Kino in Oz, and a contributor to SBS, SBS Movies and Flicks Australia. Her work has been published by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Junkee, FilmInk, Birth.Movies.Death, Lumina, Senses of Cinema, Broadsheet, Televised Revolution, Metro Magazine, Screen Education and the World Film Locations book series. She is also the editor of Trespass Magazine, a film and TV critic for ABC radio Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, and has worked with the Brisbane International Film Festival, Queensland Film Festival, Sydney Underground Film Festival and Melbourne International Film Festival. Follow her on Twitter: @swardplay
