Directors Welcome

FLiCKERFEST 2024

Welcome to the 33rd Flickerfest International Short Film Festival. We are thrilled to continue to celebrate the best of the world and Australia’s short films with audiences for over 3 decades now and to have grown during that time to become Australia’s leading Academy® Qualifying and BAFTA Recognised short film festival.

Flickerfest is thrilled to be celebrating our 33rd year in January, returning to our long term home the Bondi Pavilion supported by our partners Waverley Council, sharing a diverse, creative and uplifting programme of shorts, that connect both our local community and the rest of the world, through inspiring world cinema.

The Flickerfest pre-selection committee and programming team have watched and reviewed over 3,400 entries from across the globe, curated into 122 short films, screening in our Academy® Qualifying and BAFTA Recognised shorts competitions, with a further 110 featuring in a range of showcase programmes, confirming that Flickerfest continues to attract the latest in cutting edge shorts from the world’s most exciting and innovative emerging filmmakers.

The uniting force among the shorts to be screening at Flickerfest 2024 is their ability to push the conventions of film and narrative to deliver surprising, exciting and ground -breaking results across, fiction, animation, documentary and every genre in between.

As Australia’s leading Academy® Qualifying short film festival, the shorts in competition at Flickerfest are fiercely vying for a number of prestigious prizes including the Flickerfest Award for Best International Short Film, the Yoram Gross Award for Best International Animation, the Panasonic Lumix Award for Best Australian Short Film, The Spectrum Award For Best Direction in An Australian Short Film. Plus a host of other hotly contested prizes, which recognise the various craft areas inherent in making a great short film.

Now in its 6th year Rainbow shorts will celebrate amazing LGBTQI films from at home and around the world, curated by award winning queer filmmaker Craig Boreham.

This year in honour of Survival Day we are thrilled to screen an outstanding collection of 9 Indigenous shorts by incredibly talented first nations actors, writers, directors and producers from across Australia. All are standouts across our festival programmes and shine a spotlight on the amazing talent, culture, resilience and survival of our first nations people acknowledging, their resistance and survival as the oldest living culture on the planet

Our FlickerUp competition, for filmmakers 18 and under, celebrates the next generation of short film stars who’s promise and talent will light up our screens for years to come.

FlickerKids promises a delightful programme for the young and young at heart; Love Bites, a romp through the quirky world of modern relationships is perfect for a date night, and Short Laughs Comedy takes you on a hilarious journey from the weird to the wonderful, with clever comedy from across Australia and the world.

I would like to extend an enormous thanks to our major government partner Screen Australia who supports both our festival and the national tour encouraging a platform that nurtures and supports Australian Filmmakers, and in turn provides Australian audiences with access to inspirational storytelling from their own backyard and beyond.

This year’s festival would also not be possible without the support of our local government partner Waverley Council, who has guaranteed our continued home in Bondi Beach for almost 3 decades now, through our return this year to the stylishly revamped Bondi Pavilion.

Presenting an international film festival considered among the best in the world is also made possible by the ongoing generous support of our major State Government sponsor Screen NSW.

This year Flickerfest is thrilled to welcome on board a new major national partner, Specsaver’s, both in Bondi and nationally, who have also contributed generously to the world of short filmmaking, through their shorts competition that has furthered the career of one lucky creative.

Australia’s leading film education institution, The Australian Film Television And Radio School (AFTRS) will again support the festival both in Sydney and on tour across Australia and continue their award for Best Australian Screenplay.

We welcome back the European Union Delegation to Australia whose partnership across our Best Of European Union Showcase, Award for Best European Union Short at Flickerfest 2023 and new award for Best EU short in the Rainbow Category, celebrates the incredible tradition of cinema from this region of the world and its impact and influence on cinema globally.

We would also like to extend a huge thanks to all of our partners who are acknowledged in this programme, we are extremely grateful for the essential and ongoing support they provide.

Behind the scenes, the many talents of the extremely hardworking Flickerfest team bring Flickerfest to life. My enormous thanks and appreciation must go to Festival Production & Tour Manager Shane Rennie, Programme Coordinator Tim Walker, Festival Production and Marketing Coordinator Elise Dupuis, Industry FlickerUp /FlickerLab and Jury coordinator Leigh Russell, Programming Team: Lies Bruines, Liz Harkman, Rich Warren, Amy Hoogenboom, Linda Olszewski, Craig Boreham, and our youth and kids programming team Julia Savage and Stan and Albie Warren. Last but not least the festival would not be shining on the big screen without our Director of Projection Alan Butterfield, projectionist Anthony Yeo and technical partner sound, David Betteridge of Loud And Clear.

Thanks for joining us to celebrate over 3 decades of Flickerfest in 2024, bringing the best in short cinema to Bondi and across Australia this summer.

Bronwyn Kidd,
Festival Director