What a way to close out our 13th festival year! We'd like to give a massive thank you to everyone who took part in the 2024 MEGA Movie Marathon this summer - you made this season an unforgettable one!
This year, we took Western Sydney stories to the world stage for our fifth annual online festival. With nearly 200% increase in online festival attendees, we reached more audiences than ever, both across Australia and internationally.
The usual suspects tuned in from Western Sydney, Queensland, and Western Australia. But we also welcomed back audiences from the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, China, and Malta, and for the first time ever, new viewership from Turkey, Portugal, Mexico, and Vietnam. Hello to our new family across the globe!
Before we go any further, first and foremost we should declare a huge congratulations to all of this year’s Marathon finalists - your hard work, creativity, and storytelling talent made this year’s festival truly special, and that clearly resonated across the world. We’re so proud to play a part in your artist journey, showcase your films and help you find new audiences.
Hosted by Matthew C. Vella, this year’s online film festival featured 23 short films made by Western Sydney filmmakers plus interviews with filmmakers, cast and crew filmed live on opening night with our wonderful red carpet host, James Preston!
We’ve been watching the votes roll in for our online awards across December and January, and now we’re ready to announce the lucky winners.
Everyone who watched the show was asked to vote for their favourite film and list their nominations for our genre awards including Best Horror, Drama, Sci-Fi, Documentary, Web Series and Comedy.
We celebrated the award winners in a special Pagey Train Podcast episode with our festival MC Shetu Simone and Artist Director Ross Page. Catch them as they recap the 2024 season, relive the best red carpet moments, take a deep dive into this year’s standout films and announce the winners.
Please give it up for this year’s genre award winners:
Best Comedy WINNER
Dusty – Submitted by Travis Jeffery
Best Documentary WINNER
Doonside: Beyond the Halls – Submitted by Anna Outridge
Best Drama WINNER
Bottleneck – Submitted by Benji Menday
Best Horror WINNER
Greystanes – Submitted by Ryan Cauchi
Best Sci-Fi WINNER
Riley – Submitted by Ryan Cauchi
Best Web Series WINNER
Greystanes – Submitted by Ryan Cauchi
Creating a film that honours a genre - or boldly fuses multiple - is no easy task, but this year’s filmmakers rose to the challenge. Congratulations to you all!
With thanks to our sponsors In The Park Events in association with Sydney Olympic Park, each of you has won a Sony sound equipment package, valued at a whopping $1000, plus your choice of an online course from the Creative + Business collection, valued at $99, and a double pass to Event Cinemas, valued at $49.
Now, it’s time for the big moment… the highly anticipated People’s Choice Award.
This award is decided entirely by our online audience, this year sending in votes from more than 10 countries, and after tallying the numbers we are excited to reveal the winner of the 2024 People’s Choice Award!
Drumroll, please… let’s hear it for:
2024 People’s Choice Award WINNER
Places, Please! – Submitted by Paul Rye
Congratulations to Paul and the entire cast and crew of Places, Please! - what an achievement! Those of you who attended the Opening Night will also know that Paul took out Best Director too. We couldn’t be more stoked for you!
HUGE thanks again to In The Park Events in association with Sydney Olympic Park, because thanks to them Paul has won our first ever CASH PRIZE! That’s $2000 coming your way - and we can’t wait to see what magical project you come up with next. You’ll also be invited to join Roscoe on The Pagey Train podcast this year to discuss all things film, filmmaking and Western Sydney.
Congratulations to ALL of this year's entrants!
Please put your hands together for all of the incredible filmmakers that made a film and entered Made in the West in 2024 – there are more and more creative folk from Western Sydney working on films these days than ever before and that’s just the way we like it!
A special shout out also to all the festival finalists who lit up the big screen at Event Cinemas Liverpool and brought joy to audiences throughout our summer movie marathon. Your films truly made the festival experience fabulous for everyone, including us!
A huge thank you to our incredible hosts, Matthew C. Vella and James Preston for their stellar on-camera presence, and to the fantastic team at Luke Walker Productions (Luke, Daniel, Vuk) our truly dedicated festival sponsors working alongside producers Daragh, Addy and Ross to capture all the excitement of festival night.
We appreciate the sponsors who make Made in the West possible every year by supporting the event’s running costs. Event Cinemas Liverpool, Western Sydney University, AFTRS, Still Searchin’ Productions, and Made in the West Creative – your support means so much, not only to us here at festival HQ but to the hundreds of filmmakers who call Western Sydney home.
With your continued backing, local artists and storytellers have a platform to share their diverse and authentic Australian stories on screen, year after year. Thank you!
And that goes for everyone in our very lucky festival family. From those who joined us on Opening Night in the cinema to those tuning in around the world, from our supportive sponsors to our stellar crew and judging panel, it is an incredible thing when a community unites and celebrates its successes. Thank you for being a part of Made in the West.
That’s a wrap for the 2024 season - our lucky 13th year! - but don’t worry, we’ll be back soon enough for our 14th festival in 2025. We’re already underway making plans for the best festival yet.
Stay tuned in the weeks ahead as we prepare to release the highlights reel from the Opening Night. We’ve got some great interviews and red carpet moments to share!
And ...Submissions for Made in the West Film Festival 2025 are open now. If you’ve got a short film with a Western Sydney connection - whether it’s a location, cast, or crew member - we want to see it on the big screen and shared across the world. Head to our submission form to enter your film in the running.
NEW this year - we've introduced an 'extended shorts' category for all films 15-30 minutes in duration! While we love (and still encourage!) you to tell short and impactful stories under 15 minutes, we also know that many of you are experimenting with longer form content and we're here for it.
We've grown in recent years too, screening films online in our movie marathon, lining up premieres for feature films at the cinema, as well licensing local films for big screens across town including outdoors at Sydney Olympic Park! So we think we have more opportunities to get films of all kinds out there in the years ahead.
If you know a local business or organisation who is keen to support the thriving arts and cultural scene in Western Sydney, let us know! Or if you’d like to work with us yourself, get in touch today. We're working on creative projects all the time at Made in the West Creative and we love teaming up with local artists!
Until next time - keep creating, keep collaborating, and keep telling the authentic and bold stories we know you have in you.
See you soon, Western Sydney!