Suburban Wildlife, the new feature film created almost entirely by a crew of AFTRS Bachelor of Arts (Screen) students, will have its world premiere at this year’s Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival in San Jose, California.
Director Imogen McCluskey (Bachelor of Arts (Screen), 2017) and co-writer Béatrice Barbeau-Scurla (Bachelor of Arts (Screen), 2017) are both travelling to the USA to attend the festival. Recently, McCluskey was awarded the 2018 EU Film Award for her AFTRS production Gem, which sent her on an exchange program to Film Fest Gent in Belgium. On the premiere of her debut feature film, she said:
“Being selected for Cinequest Film Festival is a dream come true! Making our first feature on this tiny micro-budget has been the most challenging and rewarding experience of my life, and I can’t wait to celebrate with our incredibly talented cast and crew. It’s awesome to be part of a festival that truly supports independent cinema, I’m excited to see how American audiences respond to what feels like a very Australian story and setting.”
Suburban Wildlife will screen four times during the festival, with tickets available here. A link to the trailer and a list of the AFTRS crew can be found here.
Also screening at Cinequest is Vedrana Music’s (Graduate Diploma in Directing. 2014; Graduate Certificate Screen: Cinematography, 2017) short documentary film Handout. The poetic story of a woman caught up in war, the film won the Best Australian Short award at the 2018 Antenna Documentary Film Festival.
The 2019 Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival runs from March 5 –17 in San Jose.