Anyone who knows me knows that I love a good film festival, and Flickerfest was no exception. In fact, Flickerfest was amazing. Where other than Bondi Beach can you spend an afternoon relaxing on a beach and then wander into a film festival? And not just a regular film festival, but one that gives you a lovely outdoor amphitheater with beanbags and blankets? Apart from the ambiance, I also really enjoyed the films. While some I really liked and others I wasn’t so fond of, I loved the chance to get to see some beautiful Australian films.
My favorite of the short films was actually one of the very first ones we say. Titled “An Act of Love,” by writer/director Lucy Knox, this short follows the story of identical twins. These twin girls do everything together. They wear the same clothes, do their hair the same, and always hang out together. But one of the twins gets tired of having a completely shared identity and wants to be her own individual, resulting in a dramatic scene where her twin pushes her over in the middle of a roller skating rink. In anger and frustration, she then decides to go home and cut off her braids to change her identity, and after comforting her, her sister does the same. This film was one of the more simple ones we watched. It was only about ten minutes long, and it felt very relatable to me having a sibling very close in age. It was stylistically shot in a way that benefited the story rather than distracted from it. And my favorite thing is that there was less dialogue than you might expect. The film showed you what was happening rather than telling you, and I loved that.
I thought that film was particularly interesting juxtaposed with the film right after it. “Shiloh,” by writer/director Vanessa Gazy, was a very complicated story about a woman who goes back in time to save her mother’s life despite the effects that this would have on her own life (and those of her siblings – I think she was rather selfish). This film was not straightforward at all. It was complicated. I enjoyed the rhythm of the editing of this film, and it was beautifully and stylistically shot. But the story really just didn’t grab me. It felt weird, the main character felt selfish, and it was completely dependent on the lead character’s voiceover to make any sense. This dependency on the voiceover is the thing that bothered me the most. I want to see a nuanced story unfold, not be told the story. And although the visuals were beautiful, I just wanted to see more of the story through the characters on screen.
While I didn’t love every film at Flickerfest, I enjoyed seeing the talent and hard work of such a wide range of filmmakers. And I didn’t even mention some of the amazing animations we saw! I respected all of the Australian filmmakers and can’t wait to see more films like them.
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