Competition was fierce from a range of local, Australian and international submissions with the bulk coming from Sweden and Finland. The Melbourne Short+Sweet Film Festival featured approximately 50 films across three heats from a pool of more than 250 submissions. At each heat, celebrity judges that included Lawrence Mooney, Paul Anderson, Dan Wiley, Frank Magree, Edwina Exton and Kirsten Stevens voted for two films and audience members voted for a further two films that then combined to form the final program.

The Short+Sweet theatre festival has been around for 16 years and staged around 5,000 ten-minute plays. This year was the first foray into film with a series in Sydney in March before several international Short+Sweet film festivals. The films maintain the Short+Sweet tradition: under 10 minutes, shot and edited on any device, no genre restrictions and featuring a mix of local and international submissions.

In such a filmy town as Melbourne and especially just before the mecca that is the Melbourne International Film Festival, it was important to do something a bit different. The films were screened in bars that included The Loop Project, The Local Taphouse in St Kilda and the forgotten gem, the Treasury Theatre. These non-traditional screening venues provided a hit with both filmmakers and audiences alike as it created a convivial atmosphere, opportunities to connect with other filmmakers and experiment. Filmmakers travelled from afar to attend their world premieres with Gabriel Stoltz attending from Brisbane and Joel Siroen from Perth and Stephanie Davidson flying in from Sydney.

The Audience Award went to Romi Trower’s No One is Listening Anymore! that was in some ways a prequel to her psychological comedy feature film, What if It Works that has been touring the festival circuit. Romi gives a terrific performance opposite Offspring star Richard Davies in a variation of the Chekov story, Ward No. 6.

The Judges Award went to Nathan Loves Ricky Martin [pictured] by Steven Arriagada and Llewellyn Michael Bates – a disturbing but beautiful film (shot on 35mm) about a disabled young man and his mother, who in a fit of desperation expresses her deep desire for the next door neighbour.

Highly commended was Wibble Wobble – the stunningly dry humour debut by Daphne Do about a young man’s forced sale of his grandmother’s refrigerator and the strange demand by the would-be buyer of his grandmother’s last dish – a large plate of jelly.

The Melbourne leg was curated by Greg Dolgopolov.

The winners’ films will be screened in competition in Hollywood while Short+Sweet Film will spread across Australia with screenings planned for all the capital cities.

Head to the website to find out more about Short+Sweet.

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