The team at SSP worked hard this year to bring the Western Sydney Film community a festival to remember after such another challenging year.
2020 and 2021 has changed the way we gather and interact as a community (sometimes for the better!) and as local film 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.
Thank you to the wonderful folks who joined us in house at our 10th annual film festival.
We had a blast, as always – we love celebrating Western Sydney on the big screen with you!
We are SO looking forward to next year! What a pleasure it will be to be able to fill the cinema once again with an enthusiastic audience for Western Sydney films.
Thank you too, to our global audience who tuned in for the second time to see Made in the West Online Film Festival -- what a buzz it was to finally share this year’s festival films with the world!
With viewers tuning in from across Australia, the EU and the USA, the 2021 Online Festival was hosted by Sunil Badami and featured all 21 films screening for the entire weekend, with audiences at home voting for their favourite film to determine the winner of the 2021 People’s Choice Award.
We’re over the moon to have been able to share Western Sydney films to a global audience once again. The films being made here in the West are cutting-edge, and worthy of national and international acclaim.
Who could have guessed when we started the festival TEN YEARS AGO that this is where we would end up? Certainly not us!
And we really wouldn’t be here this year 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.
Put your hands together for these local heroes!!
WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY
WSU School Humanities and Communications Arts has been working with the team at Made in the West to provide industry experience and connections for students in their popular Creative Industries and Communication Arts degrees.
In 2021 we have been working with numerous WSU students including students Natasha Raj and Elissa Sewell on our Digital Campaign Internship, design student Tia Macgillivray whose design won our 2021 poster competition, our wonderful event volunteers (Nataly, Jumana and Thomas), Laura Caldwell taking snaps on the red carpet and Jessica Pabian rocking the mic as MC for the in-cinema show. We’re pleased to have been able to develop our relationship with the university during such a challenging year and we look forward to 2022 when we will again make use of their state-of-the-art TV studio at Parramatta South for the production of TWO episodes of Made in the West TV working with a WSU student camera crew alongside Associate Producer Intern Luke Hodge. You can learn more about the Communications and Creative Industries degree at WSU here.
EVENT CINEMAS LIVERPOOL
Event Cinemas is a huge supporter of the Western Sydney film community, providing a dedicated space on a Saturday night at the cinema for locally made films on their huge V-max screen.
Every year we pinch ourselves thinking about how amazing it is that we can screen our Western Sydney-made line-up at Event Cinemas with theatre-style seating for 330 people, digital projection and a fully licensed private cocktail bar.
What wonderful venue sponsors we have! 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 for 2022 – it’s going to be great!
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.
Still Searchin’ Productions knows that 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 second annual Online Film Festival. In 2020 and 2021 we connected our community online, networking with Western Sydney filmmakers at our interactive online networking events – we love hosting them so much we’re pretty sure we’ll keep going in 2022! Plus, we’ve got some new plans underway – we think there’s so much more we can do to link Western Sydney Film to the wider creative industry – just you wait!
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 IT 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.
We’d also like to thank our prize sponsors for donating so generously to this year's festival award winners.
We'd particularly like to thank Irierootsini Photography, Sydney Props Studio and Creative+Business for their support, donating actors headshot packages, time in the TV studio and creative practitioner workshops as prizes each year for FIVE YEARS now – they’re amazing!
We thank them for believing in the filmmaking community we have here in the western suburbs!
We have a talented community 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 an important force in the local film scene and with the help of local businesses like these, we’re dedicated to creating more space for local creatives to tell their stories on screen.
So let's all say THANKS to these amazing contributors for supporting us through our 10th year celebrating Western Sydney films – we’re stronger when we work together!
Do you want to get involved?
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 2022 Sponsor information.
We're always happy to hear from potential supporters!