EVENT: 2011 Shortcuts Film Festival

I had a great time co-hosting the 2011 Shortcuts Film Festival – Western Sydney’s only youth short film festival at the Powerhouse Youth Theatre. There was a turn out of approximately 150 people all coming to support their budding filmmakers and their short film.

I would like to congratulate Vinh Nguyen [pictured right] (whom was involved in Vietnamese Stories Digital Storytelling Project & Vietnamese Theatre Project – projects that I’ve coordinated in the past) on his award for Best Film – The Tech Effect. Vinh has entered into Shortcuts for the past 5 years and have been vying for the major category ever since. He’s definitely grown as a filmmaker over the years, testing different styles, genres and formats of storytelling.

Also a major big congratulations to the makers of short film “Canvale High – School of Cliques”. Directed by John Nguyen and Peter Thai Tran, with the collaboration of their year 10 school mates, their first time ever film took out runners up for People’s Choice Awards on the night. I facilitated their filmmaking sessions at Canley Vale High and am impressed with their developments throughout the short time span I was with them.

It was also awesome to see Mr Robert Shehadie (“Fat Pizza” and “Housos”) made a supporting appearance and share a few bellyful of laughs as well.

This year, we had Aga Kolaczkowski (Emerging & Filmmakers Fund for Screen NSW) and TV actor Steve LeMarquand as our judges. Unfortunately, two of our other judges pulled out the last minute and our dependable and all time mentor Craig Anderson (“Double The Fist”) was happy to fill in.

Big ups to Kimberley Tan for a great festival coordination of the event and hopefully it will develop even further in 2012.

SHORTCUTS ’11 Winners

Best Film

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Audience Choice Award

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Best Script

Metal Kingdom – Skylie Moss, Corey Bolton & Hayley Franke

Best Actor

Kyle Mcleavy in No Empathy

Best Cinematography

Hello Panda – Ali Kadhim

Best Sound Design

A Rock’s Life – Robert NC Thomas

Best Editing

The Tech Effect – Vinh Nguyen

Charming & clever Rob Shehadie

PEOPLE: Comedian MC Rob Shehadie

My colleague parkour filmmaker Ali Kadhim and I were recently called out to do a radio interview with 702 ABC Radio with Deborah Cameron, who was at Blacktown. They were doing some coverage for upcoming elections and had a lot of "dry" political talks and needed something "artsy" to spruce things up.

That's where "Team Other" came out to play and spoken about cultural identities in the arts. During this time, I got acquainted with Rob Shehadie, a humble funny man who's done an accolade of works (which I felt a little dumb for not knowing). Shehadie is like tobuli; he's exotically a mix of comedy, MCing, acting and another switch on activist of his own kind.

I'm was enthralled in the short conversation I had with him about art within our own cultural communities and how do we go about pushing the boundaries,

broadening the perspectives to create opportunities to cut into mainstream.

The works he has done including Australian TV Show "Fat Pizza" and currently "Housos" has always known how to cause a stir, garner some attention and thus has made it. Whereas, the Vietnamese community, even after almost 40 years of settlement in Australia, is still divided and it's voice in mainstream is very minimal.

Anyhow, here's his "Tuk It Easy!" NSW Maritime Government Campaign that has been a bit of a pot stirrer. But hey, it gets the message across! Click on the poster to watch the link!