By KATH GANNAWAY
THE Warburton Film Festival over the weekend more than lived up to its sub-title “… a wonderland of films”.
Starting on Friday with the ‘Show us your Shorts’ film competition for young and aspiring film-makers, to the nine international and Australian films shown over the weekend, the 31st festival received great reviews from film-goers, and from film industry guests.
Crochet Noir, an animated film by Jessica Harris took out the Golden Shorts Award for Best Short Film of the Festival and local filmmakers also rated well.
Matthew Holmes received the Senior Technical Excellence Award for his ‘chiller’ The Artifice, and Matthew Hughes received a Yarra Ranges Commendation Award for Quest II – the Road to Manhood.
One of the six judges, Greg Nicholas, a member of the Yarra Ranges Film Society which hosts the festival, said the quality of the 18 films entered was consistently high again this year.
A budding young actor from Mount Evelyn, Bailey Barbour, was the audience favourite for his hair-raising performance as the black-eyed boy in ‘Artifice’.
“He’s the cutest little kid,” YRFS president Joseph Guthrie told the audience after the Saturday night showing of the film.
“Don’t worry, he told me he lives in Mount Evelyn, so we’re all right – there’s no bus between here and Mount Evelyn!”
Other highlights were the Q&A sessions with guests including Fallout producer Peter Kaufmann and director Lawrence Johnston and Mystery Road producer David Jossey.
