General News
25 December, 2025
BEST OF 2025: Films with friends
First published 12 February, 2025. All aboard for the third annual Gilgandra Film Festival.
More than 40 people from all walks of life gathered at the CWA Rooms on Saturday night to hear how they can become involved in the third annual Gilgandra Film Festival in May.
The Friends of the Gilgandra Film Festival invited the community to drinks and nibbles on February 8 to learn more about the local festival and the Friends’ vision for the future.
“We want this film festival to keep going for a long time,” said festival director, Sue Armstrong.
“This is our third year, and we want to just keep on going as long as we can, but we can't do it unless we've got your help,” she explained.
Unique rural film festival
British-Australian documentary filmmaker and author, Simon Target, who has volunteered his time to the local documentary film festival as artistic director since its inception in 2023, was a special guest at Saturday night’s function.
He encouraged people to become involved in the festival, which is believed to be the only locally-produced documentary film festival in rural NSW.
Mr Target acknowledged the Country Women’s Association (CWA) Macquarie Group for its role in inspiring the Gilgandra Film Festival.
“The CWA is important to me because it introduced me to Sue [Armstrong],” Mr Target said.
“The film festival we're talking about tonight is an accident. It happened purely by chance.”
Connecting several years ago through his wife, Polish-born doctor and author Beata Zatorska, who was a guest speaker about her home country for the CWA, Mr Target met Sue and Brian Armstrong who invited him to come and make a documentary in the area. He did, and the subsequent film Warrawong: The Windy Place on the Hill was selected for showing at the Krakow and Sydney film festivals in 2022.
“It was a documentary that, I guess, asked the question that many of you would know, which is, what do you do with the farm when you're getting old, sick and the kids don't want it, which was exactly Brian and Sue's problem,” Mr Target told those gathered.
He attended the festival in Krakow, Poland, while Sue Armstrong attended the Sydney Film Festival where the local documentary was shown. This led to discussions about showing the film locally in Gilgandra, and the Gilgandra Film Festival was born.
“We thought, let's do a screening in Gilgandra. And why not show a couple more films and make it into a little film festival?” Mr Target said.
The rest is history, and following successful runs in 2023 and 2024, the Gilgandra Film Festival is back again this year.
During his talk on Saturday night, Mr Target showed several short documentary films about regional people and their contribution to the rich social fabric of the community.
Featured among them was the Gilgandra Weekly’s own Lucie Peart, who spoke about the importance of community newspapers as a record of a community’s existence.
Those gathered enjoyed watching the mini-documentaries.
Kids wanted for this year’s festival
The involvement of young people has been of particular interest to film festival organisers, and Mr Target spoke about the ability to make films on smartphones nowadays which has increased participation by people of all ages.
This year’s theme is about telling other people’s stories, he said, and they were pleased that seven schools have agreed to be involved.
“If you know any children who'd like to make a film, please encourage them. We love it,” he explained.
“It doesn't require any knowledge or special technique. We're happy to take completely unedited material. We just want them to tell the story of their life or their friend’s life.”
He acknowledged the generous support of the Gilgandra Community Op Shop, which has provided a donation to support the involvement of children in this year’s festival.
Get involved
After the film screenings, Sue Armstrong spoke to the Gilgandra Weekly about the importance of community involvement in this and future film festival events.
“We want to keep it going but can’t with just a few people,” she explained.
Those attending the evening had the opportunity to complete a form expressing their interest in supporting the event as volunteers, she said, and she hoped many would step up.
A number of people did complete the expression of interest form on the night.
The Friends of the Gilgandra Film Festival are keen to hear from anyone locally and in the wider region with an interest in being involved in this year’s festival, which will take place from May 2-3.
Readers can follow the event on social media and its dedicated website, and those interested in volunteering can reach out to Sue Armstrong or festival secretary Helen Oates for further information.
