Some 10 films have been nominated for the Young Australian Filmmaker of the Year Award at the Byron Bay International Film Festival, with veteran actor Jack Thompson among the judges.
Each project comes from a filmmaker under 25, with their shorts to play in-person at the festival for the first time since 2019.
During the festival, Thompson will also appear in conversation with Madman Entertainment CEO Paul Wiegard over a lunch at Byron Bay restaurant Ember. The winner of the Young Australian Filmmaker of the Year Award will be announced at the film session following the lunch.
The filmmakers and their projects are:
Mariella S. Solano (25): AFTRS graduate Solano is a Peruvian-Australian director, writer, and producer whose directorial debut, short film Alba, tells the story of an aspiring Peruvian performer deciding who she is dancing for – others or for herself.
Natalia Stawyskyj (24): Despite having a debilitating chronic illness, Stawyskyj has nurtured her passion for filmmaking, with her short All Silent Dogs drawing on her own experiences to a story about embracing individuality. Teenaged Ylva faces the choice of giving up her ability to transform into a dog or face the familial and societal consequences of keeping it. After moving through her complicated life, she finds authenticity and honesty.
Erika Felton (24): The Sydney-based Felton’s short Cusp examines the difficult decisions we all face – when to leave our loved ones to travel overseas, and how to say goodbye. The film is an elegy to “the beautiful heartache that occurs when queer friendships are ripped apart by countless overseas moves”, and a celebration of what it means to be alive.
Holly Trenaman (24): In Dating Violet, Wollongong-based Trenaman tells the story of Violet and her small hometown after she is dumped by her boyfriend and her parents contemplate divorce. Violet realises she has never known love but, imprinted with the scars of domestic violence, she begins her road to recovery through friendship with a young man going through similar challenges.
Riley Sugars (25): Sugars’ black comedy Hatchback, starring Stephen Curry and Jackson Tozer, is nominated for the AACTA for Best Short Film and won him Best Director at CinefestOz.
James Weir (25): Weir’s Julia is about a family arm-wrestling battle as “a meditation on the existential dread one feels when their perspective of their place in the world suddenly shifts”.
Harry Sabulis (23): Wynnum resident Sabulis’ Lumber, about a lonely lumberjack visits a gay bar for the first time looking for love, makes its Australian premiere at Byron Bay Film Festival following its world premiere at the Oscar-qualifying queer film festival Out on Film in Atlanta.
Alisha Mehra (22): Match Point was born out of Mehra’s desire to redefine Australian cinema to better represent an authentic Australia. The film follows two first-generation Australians who cross paths at the annual badminton competition and raises questions of identity, self-worth and survival.
Lachlan Anderson-Schmidt (20): Anderson-Schmidt’s XERO SUGAR is a journey through a man’s subconscious in pursuit of a mysterious woman. The experimental film has a VHS style and uses neon lighting to create a dreamy, fantastical sci-fi tone.
Madeleine Neate (24): Dark comedy Thallium Enthusiasts is based on the true story of a group of women in Sydney who in the 1950s used a domestic rat poison to kill. The film screened at the Melbourne Women in Film Festival.
The festival has also made special mention of Luca Fox (25) for You Know How He Is; former winner Claudia Bailey (25) for Right Here; Marlon Denning (15) for The Rock Pool Waltz and Kitale Wilson (21) for Exposed.