Bayside Film Festival
Bayside Film Festival is a Melbourne based, community film festival established by co-founders Michael Rowe and Nicholas Fernandez (FFF director) in 2003. As young filmmakers living in a country where local cinema is often not appreciated by mainstream audiences, they thought that to develop a more sustainable local film industry was to get more people on set to see just what it takes to get a film in the can … Where better to start than with the technologically astute youth.
The aim of the event is to engage young people in a school-based filmmaking project where the finished films are screened as part of the Bayside Council funded festival, held in the beautiful independent Bayside cinema in Brighton. The films to come out of the festival are mind-blowingly well made and thoughtfully put together considering the teen producers, directors, editors and cinematographers are typically making their debut film. The films cover an
impressive breadth of topics each and every year but more importantly the films effectively reflect the local concerns and priorities of this diverse community.
The festival also includes an annual rota of high-calibre presenters who discuss their art for a fast growing audience of very enthusiastic school-aged filmmakers. Of course the sessions are open to and are attended by experienced filmmakers as well.
