Australian first silent film competition launches

Well, we’re all familiar with booming surround sound, loud dialogue and deafening action stunts in our movies, but how about a silent film? It’s appropriately called Shush Fest, Australia’s first ever short film competition where not a single word is spoken. Let’s bring in festival director Rebecca Zamanic, who we hope today is in fine voice. Nice to see you, Rebecca. Nice to see you. Thanks for having me. First of all, what is Shush Fest and how did it come to life? Well, it came to life a late night conversation between a friend and I, my Co founder of the festival, Daniel New. And we were kind of just wondering whatever happened to silent film? You know, it’s 100 years. It’s where film started. There were so many geniuses and Mavericks at that time and we wondered what would happen if we threw out a challenge to film makers to make short films without sound. And Shushfest was born. So this is a competition. I can imagine it’s quite a task to tell a story without sound these days. Yeah. And that was absolutely our intention. We really wanted to throw out that challenge to film makers and creators to see what they would do with it in the modern world. I mean, at its essence, a story is a story, a narrative is a narrative. We’re so used to sound these days. What would it be like without it? And what would modern day film makers do with that? So we’re really intrigued to see how that works. So we’re talking silent films. What are you looking for? It’s up to 10 minutes. No diegetic sound. Subtitles allowed, music over the top allowed. And everyone made films with all of those things and some without them and everything in between. Some were quite traditional in their approach, Some were a little bit more modern. Some had title cards, some didn’t. Music obviously plays an enormous role in it as well. Some of them have their original music as well, which I think is fabulous. Hopefully the judges do too. Can you just describe the power of silent cinema? You’re absolutely present. You can’t double screen. You have to watch. You watch with intent. You engage your whole brain, which I think is a really unique situation these days when everyone’s sitting in front of a screen and looking at another screen and not paying attention. So I think that was a really beautiful outcome that we hadn’t really foreseen. And I think that the film makers also probably felt quite challenged as well to say, well, if we can’t have dialogue, how do we tell a story and still get across what we need to and still be powerful in that moment, which I think they’ve all of them, All the submissions have been really successful at doing. Hey, the projector is flickering to life tonight. For those inspired by the concept, how do you get tickets? We’re down at the old Harbour Town Cinema, which is now run by a wonderful venue called 612. We have sold out online, but there are a few tickets left on the door. Doors open at 6:30. Get down early and get your ticket. Good on you, Rebecca. Lovely chatting with you this afternoon. Thanks, Sophie.