HOW do you begin to describe the utter devastation of losing your soulmate to illness, suicide or violent death?
Film maker, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, knows what it must be like and with his short film ‘Dusty’ in the Open section of the Bass Coast Shorts Film Festival 2025 at the weekend he laid it bare for everyone to see.
Honestly, it was pretty tough to watch, seeing the festival’s best actor Travis Jeffery go through the self-destruction that such intense personal pain can trigger.
Thankfully (spoiler alert) there was some measure of resolution at the end.
But there was pride too, watching the silver screen at the Berninneit Cultural Centre last Saturday night, and being introduced to a different world just below our own doorstep by Inverloch-based diver, film maker and expert in marine flora and fauna Steve Dunn who took out the Best Film (Local) for his worryingly beautiful documentary ‘Vanishing Seaweeds’.
What are we going to do about the invasion of the long-spined sea urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii) which has already killed off the life-giving kelp and seaweed fields along the NSW coast and east coast of Tasmania and is heading towards Wilsons Promontory and the Bunurong Marine and Coastal Park?
Here's the program of films, drawn from the entries to this year’s short film festival, screened at Berninneit on Saturday night. All demanded a response.
- Loser (Open) USA, which won the Best Screenplay for Colleen McGuinness took us into the life of a young school leaver, disappointed with how things were turning out for her after the death of her mother. It would have been enough as a study of anthropology, sociology, and psychology but the spectre of US gun violence loomed drawing attention to the 128 lives lost daily (2023).
- Entropy, Open/Doc, Norway, Inuk Jørgensen asking the question ‘would you want to go on a journey, and take your kids with you, knowing it would end in catastrophe?’ The film produced chillingly beautiful images of the vanishing ice cap in Greenland.
- The Punt, Open, Vic, Rob La Terra, brought laughs for a clever twist.
- Vanishing Seaweeds, Local/Doc, Local Steve Dunn. Take the opportunity to see it locally if you can.
- Burnt Country, Open, UK, Kirsten Slemint, focussed attention on the failure of Australia’s do-nothing forest management approach and the hope offered by cultural burning.
- Get Home Safe, Open, January Jones, slammed the shocking state of gender-based violence in Australia in our faces.
- Small, Open, Vic, Sarah Hegge-Taylor, describes the scene of settlers infected with smallpox.
- Dusty, Open, NSW, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor. Disturbing, dark, analogical.
- Hoeba!, a short animation, Netherland, Sem Assink.
A short awards presentation preceded the screening of a selection of the films.
The awards included the Sue Blainey Award for Best Female Storyteller taken out by January Jones and Karla Hillam for ‘Get Home Soon’. It’s the only award that includes a cash component ($500) and highlights the importance for emerging film makers (or indeed anyone forging a path in the arts in Australia) to be supported in this way.
It’s the second Sue Blainey award provided in her memory by her sister Libby Blainey. The first was the Sue Blainey Award for Editing at the Canberra Short Film Festival, won by promising editor Sarah Panzetta for film maker Dylan Hare's ‘Armstrong’.
Sue Blainey was an acclaimed editor for film and television who started her film career in Australia and moved to New York in 1989. As TV started to overtake film as the preferred medium, she crossed the continent to work in the Los Angeles studios.
Her career took her from analogue editing on a Steinbeck with chinagraph pencils, razor blades and sticky tape - through early digital film-making on the Avid - to the introduction of high-speed internet that made it possible to work from anywhere.
She was invited to join the American Cinema Editors Guild and to put ACE behind her name on credits and was nominated for an Emmy and an Eddy for her work on Lost.
Libby says of her sister Sue was a strong feminist who loved filmmaking and storytelling. She went out of her way to help young creatives develop their projects and generously gave her time, intelligence and energy to mentor young and upcoming filmmakers and to share the secrets of her craft.
List of awards
- Sue Blainey Award for Best Female Storyteller January Jones – Get Home Safe
- Best Film (Open) Sarah Hegge-Taylor – Small
- Best Film (Local) Steve Dunn – Vanishing Seaweeds
- Best Film (Schools, Under 18) Jessica McGuirk (Wonthaggi) – Steel Reborn
- Best Animation Sem Assink – Hooba
- Best Coastal Life Film Brad Coetzee – Beehives and Bottom Turns
- Best Documentary Ada Tuna – The Gap
- Best Environment Film Michael Portway & Timothy Brown – The Endless Tide
- Best First Nations Story Inuk Jørgensen – Entropy
- Best Inclusivity Film James Freemantle – Lemon
- Best Music Video Nicky De Gruchy & Peter Michael Baird – River
- Best People and Place Film Damian McLindon – The Ranch Motel
- Best Screenplay Colleen McGuinness – Loser
- Best Actor Travis Jeffery – Dusty
- Emerging Talent Award Oscar Rosauer – Martyr
Highly Commended Certificates
- Returning Our Ancestors – Michael Woods
- Memorabilia – Ceridwen Dovey & Rowena Potts
- Broken Homes – Eleanor Evans & Giovanni Aguilar
- Haagua – Marc Antony Chavez & Octavio Aceves Coutiño
Film maker and director of the Bass Coast Shorts Film Festival 2025 John Frohlich said it was likely the festival would return next year.
