I had five shorts make it into the Dungog Film Festival program. It seemed worthwhile to make the trip, and it was fun, but entirely due to the people I travelled with and friends I met there. Dungog is no doubt a major undertaking in management and logistics, but being a film festival, you think they might pay more than cursory attention to projection and seating.
Poor quality projection with washed out blacks and milky whites. Very low screen heights which caused those in front of you to obscure a third of the screen. Very high ambient noise levels in the theatres with what sounded like electrical machinery running. Poorly masked windows and lights washing out screens. Child sized seating with fixed spacing to sit in for over two hours. Insufficient seats leaving many to sit on cold, hard flooring.
Dungog was a lot of fun, and very disappointing at the same time. With three or four thousand of people spending two hundred odd dollars each on tickets alone, you’d think some might be allocated to the venues.
There were some very good films though too. Adam’s Talit was my pick for best short.