General News
12 May, 2025
Film festival ‘reely’ good
The third annual Gilgandra Film Festival (GFF) was a huge success with over 300 people attending this year’s two-night event.
Held at the Gilgandra Shire Hall, the 2025 GFF featured the stories of locals, children and their friends and animals, Polish missionaries in Papua New Guinea, and refugees lost in a Polish/Belarussian forest.
The Friday night was the screening of the youth films entered in this year’s festival from western region schools including Gilgandra, Tooraweenah, Eumungerie, Geurie, Wongarbon, Distance Education (Louth), the GIL Library Hub Tech Club, and a special entry from Poland.
Around 150 people attended Friday’s 45-minute showing of the youth films to view a compilation titled ‘What Country Children See (2025)’. The filmmakers were asked to consider filming their ‘friends’ and this resulted in an array of interpretations of the theme.
Pets, livestock, and wild animals featured prominently along with insightful questions about school friends and life’s pleasures. The filmmakers learnt a few lessons, mostly the adage “never work with [children - but in this case just] animals” and the dangers of your subject answering an open question with a closed response. GFF artistic director and renowned filmmaker, Simon Target said watching the children’s films is life “drinking a cup of joy”.
“We got three-and-a-half hours of film from six primary schools and two wildcard entries [Poland, and Louth] this year. I just love watching these films. To me, it’s a sort of frontline update on what’s going on with things that I don’t know anything about - new language, new jokes, you know, new vernacular.”
“There is something very magical when you give a camera to a child and say, ‘Go and film your world. Show us what it’s like’,” said Simon.
On the Saturday night, festival organiser Sue Armstrong, introduced Gilgandra Shire Council’s deputy mayor Ash Walker, who officially opened the event, praising the now 35-strong volunteer group that organises the GFF - the ‘Friends of the GFF’.
Sue also welcomed state president of the Country Women’s Association (CWA), Joy Beames as a guest of honour, along with the Bartak family who were featured in the 2023 GFF documentary ‘Masha and Valentyna’ about Ukrainian refugees. The Bartak family are currently visiting Australia from their home in Poland. StaÅ› (StanisÅ‚aw), aged nine, and Henio (Henryk), aged seven, also entered in the youth film category as a wildcard.
