That’s a wrap for the North Bellarine Film Festival

November 28, 2018 BY James Taylor

The festival team roll up the red carpet for another year. They include, from left, Bill Lussier, Gemma Tobschall, Barbara Stevens, Lorraine Hughes, Pearl Wilson with David Hilton and Vic Ryall at the back. Di Bath, treasurer, isn’t pictured.

THE red carpet has been rolled up and the North Bellarine Film Festival is over for another year.

Film buffs from across the Bellarine, Geelong and Melbourne attended the three-day event, which also attracted many filmmakers and actors.

More than 100 people walked the red carpet opening night at a reception in the Potato Shed, Drysdale.

City of Greater Geelong councillor Jim Mason officially opened the festival and said: “The City of Geelong is very proud to support this festival and looks forward to seeing it grow into another iconic cultural event for our region”.

“There is no more fitting place for the festival than here at the Potato Shed, Geelong’s own beacon of creativity.”

The weekend screened 39 films at the Potato Shed and Portarlington Neighbourhood House, where an Animation + Experimental + Avant-Garde Program was held.

A Shorts Program ran over two days and nine directors and actors attended the Saturday program where they took part in a Q&A session facilitated by festival director Vic Ryall. Sunday’s shorts program included many award-winning films from the recent Melbourne International Festival.

Australian black comedy Brothers’ Nest opened the festival, but it was Estonian/Georgian film Tangerines that proved most popular of the feature films.

While the anti-war film may have won the hearts of its audience, the short film Thalamos captured their imagination. The film was made in a garage in Melbourne and one of the helmets used in the sci-fi thriller took pride of place on the festival’s yellow director chair.

Although the lights now have dimmed on this year’s highly successful event, the festival team will be meeting soon to start planning for 2019.