It’s New Year’s Eve and the end of a wonderful year for our film The Last Goldfish. The most incredible thing that happened in 2017 is that we finished the film. Yes!! It’s been a labour of love and would never have happened without the skills and imagination of the team. Martin Fox - editor, Louise Wadley - script editor, Carolyn Johnson - producer, Liberty Kerr - composer and our sound designer Yulia Akerholt.
We were over the moon to premiere at Sydney Film Festival on June 8, 2017 and then we headed off to the Adelaide Film Festival. There were ten screenings around Australia as part of the Jewish International Film Festival, we appeared in the Bundaberg - Sydney Travelling Film Festival and had two sold out screenings at the gorgeous Golden Age Cinema. Qantas has been screening the film over December and will continue to fly us around the world in January and February in 2018. Amazing!
2018 will see the film festival ScreenWave showing us off in Coffs Harbour and Bellingen. Mardi Gras Film Festival is screening us as part of Queer Screen’s premiere film festival which is part of the 40th Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. Also in 2018 we will see the film heading to North America. The start of the international life of our film will begin this January with the New York Jewish Film Festival followed by the Chicago Jewish Film Festival.
So Happy New Year everyone, to my colleagues, our supporters and our audience. I hope 2018 is full of wonder and amazement, success and joy. And as 2017 comes to an end we also hope that 2018 sees the end of the inhumane treatment of the refugees on Manus and Nauru. My father Manfred was lucky to escape the fate suffered by most of his family but that luck was also helped by the kindness of strangers and the policies of governments. We can make a difference.
#WithRefugees
#BringThemHere