Despite waves of enthusiasm from young creatives and support from the local community, the North West Film Festival has once again hit an unavoidable obstacle due to financial hardship.
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The committee decided to postpone the September 15 event until early 2018 after they failed to reach funding targets. It is not the first time the festival has struggled to support itself, with the 2015 event cancelled due to a lack of funds.
“We’re trying not to look at it as sad news,” committee president Meg Hanlon said.
“We got plenty of support from the community, but not quite the support that we needed to pull off the festival that we wanted to this year.”
She said the committee will be chasing down the prospect of better funding, and chose to delay the festival rather than make a “half hearted” attempt. The committee were unable to commit to funding for visits from industry guests if the festival went ahead this September as originally planned.
“We want to bring an Australian director and an entire feature film with us to the festival, including some of the cast,” Ms Hanlon explained.
“In the past we’ve done things like this, and it’s a great opportunity for everyone to see the film and then to meet the people that made the film, and to get a foot in the door and to get the idea about how they could do the same sort of thing. I think it’s really inspiring.”
Ms Hanlon said the committee, newly formed this year, had always planned to find a major sponsor for the event, but were unable to do so as yet.
“We got a lot of small support from businesses and individuals, which was incredible, but unfortunately it wasn’t the support that we needed,” she said. The committee hopes their chances might improve over the next few months.
Ms Hanlon promised keen filmmakers who have already begun making and submitting their films that they have not been forgotten.
“Anything that we have had entered, we’re hoping that people will bear with us for a couple of months,” she said. The committee is open to considering an earlier screening event if there is significant interest from the silver screen community.
Ms Hanlon said the committee was “very excited” about the future of the festival.
“It’s definitely not bad news. It’s a bit disappointing, I suppose, that we’ve got to hold off for a couple of months, but we’re going to do it right,” she said.