Flickerfest

Celebrating 32 years in 2023, Flickerfest remains Australia’s leading Academy® Qualifying and BAFTA Recognised short film festival. It continues to present A-list short film programmes recognised amongst the best in the world, with films hand-picked from the festival’s record 3,200 entries!

Flickerfest, Australia’s largest Short Film Festival returned to the Civic Theatre's Playhouse in 2023, showcasing the Best of Australian Shorts programme including stunning local highlights and Short Laughs Comedy programme.

The short films screened this year were all entertaining, inspiring, award-winning and fresh from their premieres in competition at Flickerfest Bondi, giving Newcastle Flickerfest audiences a window into the hottest contemporary shorts from at home and across the world today.

On Saturday 10th June, the Best of Australian Shorts programme shone a spotlight on the incredible short film talent that exists in our Australian industry with a host of stories honouring our unique identity and culture. Highlights include the colourful and insightful Torres Strait cultural drama ‘Katele’ (Mudskipper) about a woman longing for home, winner of the Best Australian Short Film Award at Flickerfest 2023; and Flickerfest’s Best Australian Animation winner ‘Teacups,’ based on a moving true story.

Local films also shone, fresh from their Flickerfest premieres including ‘Mud Crab’ by writer/director David Robinson-Smith who grew up in Budgewoi and based the film on his own experiences of growing up in this small coastal town. Mud Crab involves the memories of a woman who reflects on her own culpability in the treatment of a young man who is different from the rest, produced by Adam Daniel and Adam Finney.

Also on the big screen this year was comedy ‘Sticky Beak’ written & co-directed by Eloise Woodward, co-directed by Liam Shaw & produced by Mitch Bain, where a missing dog involves the neighbourhood’s serial sticky beak.

‘Sticky Beak’ was shot on location in Stockton and involved an extensive cast and crew from the Newcastle area.

Following Best Of Australian Shorts, the Short Laughs Comedy programme included Flickerfest shorts from at home and around the world. Highlights included the delightfully quirky French comedy romance, ‘Born to Cry’ where a man confronts his fears and gets the girl, alongside an incredible band of followers winner of Best International Short Film at Flickerfest 2023, the laugh out loud Swedish comedy ‘The Diamond’, a bizarre and hilarious story about a small man and his tiny friend and the delightful Australian absurdist comedy ‘An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I Think I Believe It’, also recently Oscar nominated for Best Short Animation.

National Flickerfest Festival Director Bronwyn Kidd, who grew up in Newcastle, is always thrilled to bring the festival back to her hometown, sharing the best of Flickerfest with local audiences each year.