Breath Of Fresh Air (BOFA) Film Festival free online this year

Tasmania’s Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival will be online and free this year, as organisers invite film lovers to enjoy “BOFA on the sofa”.

ORGANISERS of Tasmania’s acclaimed Breath Of Fresh Air (BOFA) Film Festival have refused to be another casualty of coronavirus, especially this year on the festival’s 10th anniversary.

With a wave of event cancellations sweeping the world, BOFA organisers opted to keep their event alive, shifting almost the entire film program online and offering it free to everyone.

“Only a handful of film festivals in the world have offered their full program online, and we are the first Australian festival to do it,” festival director Owen Tilbury said.

“Because we are one of the smaller festivals, we are able to be more nimble when it comes to adapting like this, where it would be a lot harder for one of the bigger film festivals.”

Breath Of Fresh Air (BOFA) Film Festival director Owen Tilbury.

Mr Tilbury said of the 24 films originally slated to be shown in cinemas in Launceston and Hobart for next month’s festival, 20 were still able to be shown online, meaning BOFA was able to show almost its whole program, not just a token handful.

Highlights include the documentary Rogue Waves, directed by Tasmanian champ-ion surfer Mick Lawrence, and feature film Slam, about an outspoken Muslim woman who goes missing.

Tasmanian surfer and film director Mick Lawrence. Picture: ZAK SIMMONDS

Mr Tilbury said filmmaker Q&A sessions would be conducted by Zoom video conferencing, as would the 10th anniversary opening night party.

“We want everyone to dress up in their evening wear, like they would for a premiere, pour themselves a glass of wine, and join the chat,” he said.

All people need to do to access the festival program is to subscribe to the BOFA newsletter at breath-of-fresh-air.com
.au and an access code will be emailed to you.

BOFA runs from May 1-17.