34th annual St Kilda Film Fest gets underway at Palais Theatre

IT famously unearthed beloved mockumentary Kenny — and this week the prestigious St Kilda Film Festival kicks off again, with another host of gems on offer.

St Kilda Film Festival director Paul Harris can’t pick a favourite. Picture: Chris Eastman

GLITTERATI will flock to St Kilda this week for the opening of the prestigious St Kilda Film Festival.

The film festival uncovered popular mockumentary Kenny, which won best comedy in 2004 and went on to become a global feature film sensation.

More than 2700 film and television industry professionals will walk the red carpet at Palais Theatre, the first event to be held there since Live Nation officially took over management of the 90-year-old venue last month.

After 19 years in the director’s chair, Paul Harris has narrowing the field of entrants down to a fine art.

The call went out to budding filmmakers in October last year asking for them to send in their masterpieces; by November he had received about 600 films from across Australia.

Over summer he watched every single short film to whittle the pile down to just the top 100.

“That means about one in six films get through and each film has earned its place,” he said.

Mr Harris said this year’s line-up “runs the gamut”, serving up everything from fiction and animation to documentaries and even some movies shot on phones.

“The standard (of entries) gets better all the time thanks to the shift in technology,” he said.

“(Filmmaking) used to be a very expensive business but it’s getting cheaper — people can make films on their phones now.”

But Mr Harris said he couldn’t pick a favourite among the 100 short films featured in the festival.

“It’s like trying to pick between members of your family,” he said.

“The line-up this year is really outstanding and it shows there’s a lot of fantastic work being produced in the industry.”

Previous success stories from the festival include beloved mockumentary Kenny, which took out the best comedy gong in 2004 before being transformed into a feature-length film which took about $8 million at the box office.

The St Kilda Film Festival, now in its 34th year, is Australia’s longest running publicly owned short film festival and includes a total prize pool of more than $50,000.

Winners will be eligible for consideration in the OSCARS Short Film and Documentary Short Awards.

The full festival program is available at stkildafilmfestival.com.au

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

The Eleven O’Clock , featuring Josh Lawson, directed by Derrin Seale

Fish With Legs, starring Frank Woodley and Barry Otto

Big City, starring CJ Fortuna and Gurvinder Atwal, directed by Jordan Bond and Lachlan Ryan

Eaglehawk, starring Tilda Cobham-Harvey and Ryan Corr, directed by Shannon Murphy