Not a seat was vacant at the Sunshine Short Film Festival’s fifth screening.
It was the first time Village Cinemas had sold out of tickets to the event that celebrates all things Sunshine each year via amateur films, wholly subsidised by the local business association.
Spectators and entrants took their seats for the screenings of 34 short films entered in one of three categories – primary, secondary and open. The largest contingent came from St Albans Primary School, there to cheer on their short film Harmony, which won the primary category. St Albans Primary School community hub leader Hang Bui said Harmony was a documentary style production, which followed pupils as they created artworks for a school calendar based on the state government’s Community Harmony program.
The program challenges participants to show how social cohesion builds among different racial and ethnic groups in community.
Backed by a powerful orchestral score, students face the camera to describe what harmony means to them.
“Guys, draw a love-heart everywhere,” says one pupil. “Just because you’re a different colour to someone else, you can always be friends,” says another. Narrator and scriptwriter Tadros Hanna said St Albans Primary School children already live in harmony.
“Harmony is when everyone and everything fits together.”
Festival co-ordinator Steve Pereira said young people were really able to articulate why it is important to live harmoniously together.
Oliver Crawford Smith and Oliver Bailey won the secondary category with
No Excuse.
Dean Musumeci took the open category with Small Beginnings.
To view the Sunshine Short Film Festival entries, go online to the festival’s YouTube channel www.bit.ly/2fgSKxv.
