Our local stories are getting a cinematic upgrade this May in Sussex Inlet. Award-winning filmmaker Angela Blake is hosting free smartphone videography sessions to help local First Nations communities find their voice behind the camera. It’s a great chance to pick up new skills and celebrate the craft of storytelling at the Ellmoos Centre.
Smartphone videography is the subject of a series of free workshops by award-winning filmmaker Angela Blake for members of local First Nations communities and the public school children of Sussex Inlet on Friday 8 May.
Thanks to the Shoalhaven First Nations Film Festival (SFNFF), these workshops aim to find the next group of storytellers and filmmakers here on the South Coast, who will learn the crafts associated with the film industry, including script writing, casting, directing, editing and producing.
Julienne McKay, who established SFNFF just a couple of years ago, says this is a continuation of last year’s project which brought professional filmmakers and local First Nations storytellers together in a fruitful partnership.
She says, “SFNFF has helped members of the local First Nations Community produce two films and one of the filmmakers will be filming the smartphone works with a view to making his own doco about emerging storytellers.”
The second film from the 2025 workshops, The Rock, by Luke McLeod Ebsworth, is filming its final shoot this weekend in Wreck Bay before heading for the edit suite. The film will premiere during Reconciliation Week in late May – stay tuned for all the details about the screening and a behind-the-scenes story about the making of this short film.
In Sussex Inlet, Angela – the founder of SF3, Smartphone Flick Fest, the world’s biggest smartphone film festival – is leading a dynamic smartphone filmmaking masterclass that will transform the way participants view their phone.
Angela will show the participants how to craft a compelling screenplay, master cinematic composition and lighting, and edit with confidence to produce a polished film – all on the smartphone or tablet.
Bookings for this event are essential, and there will be a few smartphones/tablets available for use if you can’t bring along your own. Refreshments will be provided.
The school group will be in the morning from 9.30am-12.30pm and the First Nations participants will be on from 4pm-7pm, at the Ellmoos Centre on Jacobs Drive.
First Nations Film Screenings in Sussex Inlet
As part of the Sussex Inlet Winter Arts Festival on Thursday 7 May, SFNFF will be screening two sessions – one at 1.30pm and the other at 4.30pm – of First Nations films.
Occupation Native, written and directed by, and starring, Trisha Morton-Thomas. Through the clever use of humour, Trisha prompts us to take another look at Australian history, post colonisation. Does Australian history, as traditionally told, tell the whole story? Or is it, to quote Trisha, “a wee bit one sided?”
Journey Home, David Gulpilil, a very different film from Trisha Morton-Thomas, co-
written with Maggie Miles and co-directed with Maggie and Alan Collins. Brilliant and
moving, the film documents the traditional funeral of David Gulpilil in Gupulul in Arnhem Land in 2022 and the long journey from where he died in South Australia in 2012. It was David’s wish to invite the whole world to his funeral and also that the process be documented, so that his lifelong journey of sharing of culture could continue.
Tickets to the screenings are available online for $25.
