Broadcast and film equipment specialist JVC Professional Australia/NZ today announced that it will again sponsoring the Newtown Flicks short film festival, now in its third year.
The festival, which was the brainchild of directors and founders Martin Kelly, Spiros Hristias and Bill Jordan, has one very distinct difference to all other short film festivals according to Kelly:
“We are the only real grass roots festival in Sydney. Our motto is ‘Supporting, Assisting, Showcasing’ and we apply this to everyone who submits a film. Unlike other festivals, everyone who enters has their film shown and everyone is eligible to win an award.”
The Newtown Flicks Festival was born in 2006 when the three colleagues discussed the absence of a good short film venue after the closing of the Valhalla and Chavel cinemas.
JVC’s involvement came when, whilst working at Kent Hi-Fi throughout 2006, Kelly met JVC Professional National Sales and Marketing Manager Noel Oakes and pitched the idea of the festival to him.
As Kelly remembers, “JVC were the only electronics company who were genuinely interested in promoting and growing the Australian film industry. With their great reputation in the industry and history in short films Noel thought it was a great idea and committed as a sponsor.”
With recent high profile movies such as ‘Gabriel’ being shot with JVC ProHD cameras Kelly has seen the number of people successfully making short or lower budget films using 3CCD HD cameras increase.
He said, “This is the technology that’s allowing people who don’t have big budgets to make high quality short films, our aim is to help them get further exposure through the festival. The Newtown Flicks festival is done totally for the passion and the love of short film. Spiros, Bill and I all have day jobs and aside from the JVC sponsored awards, the rest come out of our pockets.”
Last year’s festival had over 70 entries from across Australia including Deadly Dollies made by young film maker Guy Verge Wallace who went on to win the 2008 Junior Tropfest prize. This year Kelly is expecting over 80 entries of an ever-increasing standard.
The judges for this year’s festival include Garry Maddox from the Sydney Morning Herald, actress Genevieve Lemon and scriptwriter Philip Gwynne.
[release from Well Above]
