Blue Mountains adventure filmmaker Natasha Sebire is offering a challenge for 2016 to all vertical filmmakers – compete and win!
With her brother, Adam Sebire, a documentary filmmaker, she ran the first Vertical Film Festival in the Blue Mountains in October two years ago, as part of the 2014 climbing festival.
The festival received international attention and showcased tall-screen (9:16 instead of the usual 16:9) format film and the world's first competition for vertical film and video of works under three minutes. The original venue was St Hilda’s Church in Katoomba, but now it’s moved to the new soaring walls of the Carrington Brewery.
“The tall screen looked great under the high, arched roof of the church. Vertical films and videos are flourishing as new types of screens and cameras allow people to shoot in non-traditional formats, and further vertical film festivals have emerged around the world,” Ms Sebire said.
The 2nd Vertical Film Festival will comprise an out-of-competition section called Tall Shorts featuring a curated collection of extraordinary vertical cinema from around the world, plus a vertical video competition for works under three minutes called This Way Up.
The screenings will be projected on a large vertical screen in the atmospheric surroundings of the brewery, in Katoomba’s Parke Street, from 8pm on Saturday, May 21.
“For the competition, This Way Up, we have received many more entries than we received for the 2014 festival due to the growing popularity of vertical film, and entrants have come from far and wide,” festival organiser, Ms Sebire said.
They also had received an “excellent selection of films for the out-of-competition Tall Shorts section, with more still coming”.
“It’s a great local event, and as the first of it’s kind in the world, will put the Blue Mountains in the spotlight in terms of film festivals.”
Ms Sebire is a former finalist of numerous film festivals including the Banff film festival. Her brother Adam is an award-winning film maker and has directed, edited and filmed over two dozen documentaries for broadcasters including ABC, SBS and Al Jazeera.
Entry is open to all, by donation.
