The team at SSP have worked hard to bring the Western Sydney Film community a festival they could look forward to after such a difficult 2020. It was a year of staying at home, so we knew we all needed a good reason to leave the house!!
We also knew that we needed to stay safe. 2020 has changed the way we gather and interact as a community and as festival fans -- it has made us think outside the box and has forced us to consider what’s important to Made in the West and why we do what we do.
We are proud to be one of only a few film festivals in NSW that have successfully hosted a Covid-safe event during these challenging times.
Thank you to the 250 wonderful folks who joined us in the house at our VIP Premiere Awards Night and first ever Made in the West Marathon on Saturday 21 November. Thank you particularly for your enthusiasm and your kind words of support, as well as your patience as we worked through new things like seating allocations and wristbands.
We are SO looking forward to next year when (hopefully) we won’t have to be worrying quite so much about social distancing requirements and instead focusing on our own cocktails and networking requirements! What a pleasure it will be to be able to fill our 300-seat cinema once again with an audience for Western Sydney films.
Thank you too, to our global audience who tuned in for the first time to see Made in the West Online Film Festival -- what a buzz it was to finally share Made in the West 2020 with the world!
With viewers tuning in from across Australia, the UK and the USA, the 2020 Online Festival program screened for a full 24 hours with audiences at home voting for their favourite film to determine the winner of the 2020 People’s Choice Award, announced soon after.
We’re over the moon to have been able to share Western Sydney films to a global audience for the first time in our nine year history. Who could have guessed when 2020 began that this is where we would end up? Certainly not us.
And we really couldn’t have done it without the support and encouragement of our wonderful festival sponsors! With such a challenge on our hands getting this year’s festival up and running, we were ever so grateful for the ongoing support of these local legends.
These heroes are showing us ALL that they support our vision for a thriving creative community in Western Sydney and we think they deserve a big medal for supporting the festival.
Made in the West 2020 is certainly a collaborative effort and we think you should all put your hands together for these local heroes:
EVENT CINEMAS LIVERPOOL
Event Cinemas is a huge supporter of the Western Sydney film community, providing a space on a Saturday night at the cinema for local films on their two huge V-max screens. We're always so excited to screen our festival line-up at Event Cinemas with theatre-style seating for over 600 people, digital projection and a fully licensed private cocktail bar.
To top it all off, they’ve got a fantastic team that is committed to working with Made in the West and supporting the local film community. We love Event Cinemas Liverpool and we can’t wait to start planning our 10th anniversary festival for 2021 -- it’s going to be a wonderful celebration of ten years of Western Sydney films!
LUKE WALKER PRODUCTIONS
Luke Walker Productions is a huge supporter of Made in the West Film Festival, not only contributing an amazing DOP package to our Best in the West trophy winner but also working with SSP to capture the festival event on the red carpet and in-cinema for our audience at home watching our Online Film Festival.
We love seeing Western Sydney filmmakers shine and with Luke’s amazing cameras, equipment and expertise, he and his operators Dan & Vuk were able to capture all the glamour and excitement of the festival for our global online audience. Western Sydney filmmakers looked fantastic! We are thankful to Luke for his ongoing support for the festival and the local film scene and we love his work. You can check out the Luke Walker Productions online portfolio here.
WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY
WSU School Humanities and Communications Arts has been working with Made in the West to provide industry experience and connections for students in their popular Creative Industries and Communication Arts degrees.
In 2020 we have been working with numerous WSU students including final year Creative Industries double major Emily Mumford who joined us on our Digital Campaign Internship, design student Chiara Marshall whose design won our 2020 poster competition, our wonderful event volunteers (Amy, Nataly, Jumana, Kylie, Regina and Sunshine) and Laura Caldwell taking snaps on the red carpet, and the fabulous Jessica Pabian hosting our online festival presentation, recent Creative Industries graduate.
We’re pleased to have been able to develop our relationship with the university during such a challenging year and we look forward to 2021 when we will again make use of their state-of-the-art TV studio at Parramatta South for the production of Made in the West TV working with a WSU student camera crew. You can learn more about the Communications and Creative Industries degree at WSU here.
MEDIA HUB AUSTRALIA
Media Hub Australia are strong supporters of Made in the West Film Festival, offering their ongoing support by contributing to the festival’s running costs. Media Hub is Australia's leading broadcast channel play-out and online live-streaming service provider, managing over 260 digital and free-to-air television and radio broadcast and streaming services locally, nationally and internationally. Media Hub employs a large team of presentation, media and software professionals (including some of our crew!) and we love their work. The fact is, if you're watching free-to-air broadcast television in Australia, chances are it's coming to you from Media Hub Australia located in Sydney's West.
STILL SEARCHIN' PRODUCTIONS
Still Searchin' Productions are the team that plan and produce Made in the West each year, sponsoring the event and all major awards. We are strong advocates for Western Sydney filmmakers and it is our pleasure to uplift and amplify the many talented artists who call Western Sydney home.
In 2020 we mobilised our community online, networking with Western Sydney filmmakers at our first interactive online networking event and we loved it so much we’ll be hosting more online events in 2021. Western Sydney films deserve to be seen and celebrated across the world and this year we were thrilled to be able to make that happen with our first ever Online Film Festival. Add to that the fact that we screened the festival films across two huge V-max screens at our live in-cinema event, 2020 was a huge year for SSP!
We have an amazing community of filmmakers here in Western Sydney and we know that artists from across the greater Western Sydney region are crying out for local films on screens, more opportunities to connect with industry and collaborate, more support to improve their skills and more recognition for the great work they do.
We see Made in the West Film Festival as central to growing our local film scene and doing the important work of creating space for local filmmakers to tell their stories on screen.
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So let's all say THANKS to these amazing contributors and cheers to another year of Western Sydney films and celebrating local artists at Made in the West Film Festival.
If you know a local business that might like to support Western Sydney’s growing film scene by donating a prize or offering financial support to the festival, please contact us for our 2021 Sponsor information. We're always happy to hear from potential supporters!
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