Coffs Harbour’s Screenwave International Film Festival goes big in 2021
With a ‘culturally starved’ community hungry for entertainment, the pandemic may have provided the perfect platform to take festival to the next level.
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With a huge new venue, stellar program and a giant of Australian cinema on board, Screenwave International Film Festival has well and truly cemented its place on the Australian film festival circuit.
From humble beginnings in 2015, Coffs Harbour’s SWIFF has grown to become the country’s leading regional film festival, attracting almost 10,000 patrons in 2020, a 40 per cent jump on the previous year.
Co-presented Ashton Designs, SWIFF runs for a marathon 16 consecutive days screening 66 different feature films across multiple venues, including anew 350-seat theatre at Coffs Harbour Education campus.
With this year’s presales growing by a whopping 300 per cent, the organisers are gearing up for what could be their biggest festival yet.
Festival Co-Director Dave Horsley put the increase in interest down to the community’s hunger for live arts and culture after being “culturally starved” for the past 12 months.
He added the festival has also been aided by changing demographics and population movement into in regional towns like Coffs Harbour.
“There has been a real cultural shift in regional towns that’s followed a general decentralising population shift in the last few years, massively accelerated by COVID over the last few months,” he said.
“SWIFF is a by-product of that population shift – a metropolitan sized film festival growing in a regional town of 75,000 people.”
A decision to push the festival back to April has proven a masterstroke, with venues now able to operate at full capacity while keeping within mandated COVID-19 measures.
SWIFF has also signed up to the NSW Government’s Dine and Discover program, meaning patrons can redeem their $25 vouchers online for festival tickets.
This year a new record has been set with more than 120 sessions available for festival goers including 5 Australian premieres, and 22 world premieres for the Nextwave Youth Short Film Competition.
“Being able to host the festival the way it’s designed to be enjoyed – live and loud and full – is going to mean a lot to us and our audiences,” Mr Horsley said.
This year, SWIFF also gains three new industry ambassadors. New Festival Patrons will include Australian screen icon Jack Thompson, Sydney Film Prize-winning documentarian Sascha Ettinger- Epstein, and acclaimed actor of Killing Ground and Netflix’s Snowpiercer Aaron Glenane.
The SWIFF’21 program line-up includes multiple live soundtrack events, the Nextwave Youth Film Awards, SWIFF Talks filmmaker interviews with ABC radio, an industry filmmaker forum, and plenty of live music performances.
The festival kicks off The full line-up of films and events are available on the ticketing site, www.swiff.com.au.
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