We are soooooo excited to tell you about our brand new partnership and SF3 Award – The SF3 & Spineless Wonders Microlit Film Award.
Are you a short filmmaker on the lookout for great plot ideas? You are in luck. Publisher, Spineless Wonders Short Australian Stories has curated a selection of microliterature for a brand new SF3 award. These half-page texts are written by contemporary Australian writers. These fully-rounded narratives are packed with interesting characters and themes. They are mini-stories just waiting for you to turn them into engaging mini-films.
Each author has given permission for their work to be included in the SF3 awards. The film you create could be an adaptation which sticks closely to the original text or it could draw on aspects of the text as inspiration. The only requirement to use one of the texts is that you include the author and title of their piece in your film’s credits. For instance, ‘Adapted from…’/ ‘Based on…’ / ‘Inspired by…’.
If your film is judged best entry in this category, both you and the author will receive prize bags.
Launching SF3 2022 we are running this incredible masterclass with WIFT NSW. Come along and learn everything you need to know to make professional films on your phone with SF3’s Angela Blake and then award winning filmmaker, Megan Riakos will take you through all the things you need to know to make indie films, distribute them and find film festival success. Happening Wednesday 25th May at The HubStudio in Chippendale in Sydney. Tickets are just $10 and are open to everyone and are made possible with help from the City of Sydney and Screen NSW.
The 8th Season of SF3 is officially here! This means we want your films. All films must be shot on a smartphone or tablet. We encourage filmmakers of all ages and abilities from absolute beginners to Oscar winners and everything in between from every country in the world. Find our more and enter by August 1st.
Enter across our 5 categories:
1. Our Gala Finals Official Selection for films up to 20 mins
2. Our SF3 Kids for films made by filmmakers 16 and under at the time of filming and to a max of 10 mins
3. Our Feature Film category
4. Our Mini category of films up to 3 mins with the inspiration of FREE
We are soo proud to be working with Dolby on this incredible new award to the SF3 lineup – the SF3 First Nations Award supported by Dolby.
We had entries from around the country but our winner was an easy and unanimous decision amongst our judges – eight minutes forty six seconds by Kara Rose, a young Kamilaroi filmmaker from Sydney, Australia. Kara is inspired by the stories of her people and communities. Her ideas for the characters are from her own life stories. She is a year 11 student, who has studied many film related courses during school holidays and her electives are drama, ITM and music. Kara’s main love right now is editing, special effects and music in film. Kara hopes that she can eventually gain employment in the industry that she loves. And when you watch her film, you won’t believe she was only 16 when she made it!
About eight minutes forty six seconds
This short film/documentary highlights the horrific issue of Aboriginal deaths in police custody. In Aboriginal communities every person knows a family who has had one of their own killed while they were in the custody of police. I wanted to highlight the deaths of Aboriginal people that have died in custody and yet not police have been charged. To date there are over 500 deaths.
Aboriginal deaths in custody is a political and social issue in Australia. It rose in prominence in the early 1980s, with Aboriginal activists campaigning following the death of 16-year-old John Peter Pat in 1983. Subsequent deaths in custody, considered suspicious by families of the deceased, culminated in the 1987 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC).
SF3’s Co-Founder and Director, Angela Blake, is also the Online Accessible Filmmaking Tutor for the amazing Bus Stop Films – a pioneering, not-for-profit organisation that uses filmmaking and the film industry to raise the profile of people living with disabilities and other marginalised groups, on both sides of the camera.
Last year, Angela and her class co-wrote a short sci-fi thriller called ‘The Society Experiment’. Shot on the iPhone 13 Pro Max and directed by Angela with cinematography by Rah Sharma.
A famous Cliqtuber, in a bid to get more likes and followers, decides to spend the night in an abandoned building and live stream throughout the night. Unbeknownst to him, the building is not abandoned but is a secret undercover government rehabilitation facility; detaining people with intellectual, emotional and physical disabilities and ‘normalising them’ for release back into society. The Cliquber is arrested and thrown in a cell and must band together with the other inmates to escape.
Director’s Statement
The Society Experiment was collectively written by myself and my online Bus Stop Films class, which is a fact I am deeply proud of. I am the Online teacher for Bus Stop Films and am a huge advocate for inclusive filmmaking and this film is the perfect showcase of inclusivity in creativity, action and purpose and the magic of Bus Stop Films.
I held weekly writer’s roundtables in my class; plotting, devising and writing The Society Experiment. The original idea is a mesh of two separate ideas from class members, Nicholas and Jacob. I combined their ideas into the one film and we ran with it. The class was very passionate about being able to display some of the things from their lives and disabilities onscreen. Each student based one character on their life and was in charge of leading the writing for that character and the issues they face. In many ways The Society Experiment is a kind of autobiographical film for my class and right from the start it was extremely important for me that each student be deeply involved in every aspect of the film, especially with the story and characters.
The big idea of our film is that there is no normal. No matter how hard a government or society tries to homogenise humans, they cannot; we are all unique and wonderful. Just look what we created together!
About Bus Stop Films
Bus Stop makes films with, for and about people from diverse backgrounds and abilities.
Our programs are taught by passionate filmmakers and industry experts to give our students a holistic filmmaking learning experience and offer students increased, social, literacy and work ready skills.
Students who participate in our programs benefit from exclusive workshops, excursions, workplace opportunities, mentoring with industry professionals and the opportunity to work collaboratively on a film project.
