Heidi Maier

Cinephiles, television buffs, literary and music lovers rejoice – the first annual AACTA Festival, billed as a four-day celebration of Australia’s vibrant screen industry, is coming to HOTA Gold Coast next month.

The festival’s billing includes the AACTA Awards and will bring some of Australia’s best and brightest creative talents to Queensland.

When the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) anoints its picks for the best movies and television shows of 2023 on February 10, it will do so after showcasing the entertainment arts industry through more than 70 talks, screenings, panels and other festival events.

Among those appearing are Brisbane literary wunderkind and now Netflix sensation Trent Dalton, novelist Holly Ringland, acclaimed Australian actors and producers Marta Dusseldorp and Leah Purcell, US novelist Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry), comedian Celeste Barber and Academy Award-nominated screen composer David Hirschfelder.

AACTA Festival program director Sam Buckland says his intention is to create “a one-of-a-kind festival where everything was centred on the screen”.

Buckland admits that the more he pondered what the concept of “screen” involved, the broader his scope for programming became.

“There’s film, television, streaming, mobile, sound, music, light, visual effects, art, animation, story-telling,” he says. “I wanted events that appeal to all age groups, all centred on storytelling and screen. As we tried to hit as many of these markers and aspects as we could, the program grew and grew to become what it is today.”

In the cinematic realm, highlights include an in-depth look at the making of The Matrix, the Mortal Kombat films, an animation deconstruction of Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse and a deep dive into the stunt work on Mad Max: Fury Road.

Audiences will also get an exclusive look at the Australian film Better Man, starring Robbie Williams, and a glimpse behind-the scenes of the making of recent films Shayda, Sweet As and The Rooster.

Music aficionados won’t want to miss BAFTA-winning and Academy Award-nominated composer David Hirschfelder’s masterclass in screen composition. Accompanied by clips illustrating his drafts, rejected versions, collaborations and final musical choices, the man behind the scores of Strictly Ballroom, Shine and Elizabeth will cover topics including collaborating with directors, sources of inspiration and developing a draft musical sketch into a full orchestral score.

Television actors, writers and producers feature strongly in a Meet the Creators panel series which seeks to go behind the curtain on the creation and production of some of the industry’s most acclaimed shows. Expect to hear from those behind-the-scenes of Colin From Accounts, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and The Newsreader.

Also worth catching will be an in-conversation event with actors Courtney Eaton and Liv Hewson, the Australian stars of the deservedly critically acclaimed US television drama series Yellowjackets, and a chat with Instagram star and comedian Barber, who will discuss her online parodies of celebrity images and starring role in the hugely successful Netflix wellness industry spoof, Wellmania.

While exploring the creative processes underlying film and television productions, the festival will also offer insights into the minds of actors Dusseldorp and Purcell. Both have found fame with their raw, grounded performances and will feature in separate one-on-one conversations.

Dusseldorp will discuss her work as an actor in productions as varied as A Place to Call Home, Crownies, Janet King, Twelve and Bay of Fires, as well as her role as a producer on the latter. Purcell, while showcasing her original crime drama High Country on streaming platform Binge, will be on a panel to talk about her role in The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.

Australian authors have had great success recently with their works being adapted for the small screen and both Dalton and Ringland will be in conversation discussing the respective Netflix and Amazon Prime adaptations of their bestselling novels, Boy Swallows Universe and The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.

Internationally bestselling US author Bonnie Garmus will also reveal the creative process behind adapting her novel, Lessons in Chemistry, for Apple TV+ and Brisbane authors Nick Earls, Matthew Condon, Shastra Deo and Ben Hobson will come together for a conversation about storytelling in Queensland.

Also, award-winning Indigenous authors Lystra Rose and Tristan Michael Savage will join journalist Rhianna Patrick for a conversation with Leah Purcell and filmmaker Richard Jameson about the critical role of storytelling in the articulation and preservation of First Nations culture and experience.

AACTA Festival, HOTA, Surfers Paradise, February 8-11

aactafestival.com

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