EVENT: 2011 Shortcuts Film Festival

I had a great time co-hosting the 2011 Shortcuts Film Festival – Western Sydney’s only youth short film festival at the Powerhouse Youth Theatre. There was a turn out of approximately 150 people all coming to support their budding filmmakers and their short film.

I would like to congratulate Vinh Nguyen [pictured right] (whom was involved in Vietnamese Stories Digital Storytelling Project & Vietnamese Theatre Project – projects that I’ve coordinated in the past) on his award for Best Film – The Tech Effect. Vinh has entered into Shortcuts for the past 5 years and have been vying for the major category ever since. He’s definitely grown as a filmmaker over the years, testing different styles, genres and formats of storytelling.

Also a major big congratulations to the makers of short film “Canvale High – School of Cliques”. Directed by John Nguyen and Peter Thai Tran, with the collaboration of their year 10 school mates, their first time ever film took out runners up for People’s Choice Awards on the night. I facilitated their filmmaking sessions at Canley Vale High and am impressed with their developments throughout the short time span I was with them.

It was also awesome to see Mr Robert Shehadie (“Fat Pizza” and “Housos”) made a supporting appearance and share a few bellyful of laughs as well.

This year, we had Aga Kolaczkowski (Emerging & Filmmakers Fund for Screen NSW) and TV actor Steve LeMarquand as our judges. Unfortunately, two of our other judges pulled out the last minute and our dependable and all time mentor Craig Anderson (“Double The Fist”) was happy to fill in.

Big ups to Kimberley Tan for a great festival coordination of the event and hopefully it will develop even further in 2012.

SHORTCUTS ’11 Winners

Best Film

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Audience Choice Award

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Best Script

Metal Kingdom – Skylie Moss, Corey Bolton & Hayley Franke

Best Actor

Kyle Mcleavy in No Empathy

Best Cinematography

Hello Panda – Ali Kadhim

Best Sound Design

A Rock’s Life – Robert NC Thomas

Best Editing

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Charming & clever Rob Shehadie

TEACHING: Canley Vale High School

I've finally wrapped up on a teaching gig at my old school Canley Vale High School ever so proud of the Yr 10 class and their dynamic enthusiasm on the project. These kids started off as quite unsure about the field of filmmaking as the mix were predominately "Asian" with such familial and societal pressures of following the common fields of medicine, law and engineering. But after 8 weeks of my training and activities, it does give me some kicks that the majority of these "youngies" have their minds slightly geared towards acting and/ or filmmaking.

One particular student, J. Nguyen has impressed me with his maturity and eagerness in his pursuit as a film director. He was pedantic about shots, locations and his peer performances on the project. He and P. Tran sacrificed their lunch times and defied their parent's curfews just to get their edits done.

My role became secondary, and I'm glad to have sparked their interested, taken a step back and let their passions run their first film project. Fingers crossed for the submission to the 2011 Shortcuts Film Festival - Western Sydney's only youth film festival.

Speaking of Shortcuts, please do attend if you are in town. I will certainly be there. The details are below:

WHEN: Saturday 9th April @ 7pm

WHERE: School of Arts, 19 Harris St, Fairfield

BOOKINGS: 02 9724 6077 or shortcuts@pyt.com.au

COST: $5