We had a FANTASTIC time last night at Event Cinemas, Liverpool celebrating Western Sydney on screen! Thank you to everyone who attended the festival – the energy that you brought to the event made the night truly exciting for our finalists, and the team at SSP loved every minute of it!
This year Made in the west screened 28 short films that were bold, inspiring and heartwarming.
With TWO in-cinema screenings this year, we hosted VIP filmmakers & Special Guests at the 7pm Premiere Awards Night in Cinema 12 and a bumper crowd of excited filmmakers and fans at the 8pm Made in the West Marathon.
Over 250 people joined us last night to celebrate Western Sydney on the big screen! Thank you all for embracing our efforts to host a Covid-safe festival and enjoying the night safely with your friends.
We loved seeing you all enjoying the show, chatting films during intermission and cheering for the winners at the end of the night.
Thank you all for helping make the Western Sydney film scene one of the most vibrant and energizing creative communities in Australia.
If you missed the show or you’d like to relive the highlights from the festival, we’ll be screening all the finalist films ONLINE this Saturday 28 November at Made in the West Online Film Festival.
In 2020, Made in the West Film Festival screened 28 short films of diverse genre and type including comedy, horror, drama and docos, plus web series episodes, music videos, foreign language films and some amazing animation.
We also previewed trailers for three new feature films Sweet Hurt, Ruby’s Choice and Fragmentary, along with the Season 2 trailer for the popular web series Atomic Kingdom, all proudly made in the West.
Our panel of 9 judges deliberated the awards and we take our hats off to them for selecting our 2020 winners – we certainly couldn't have done it!
Each film was nominated for individual category awards based on the judges’ recommendations and awards were announced throughout the festival last night.
Here are this year’s winners:
BEST DIRECTOR – Arka Das for Khana Khazana
BEST SCREENPLAY - Arka Das for Khana Khazana
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHER – Jack McAvoy for Khana Khazana
BEST EDITOR – Ryan Cauchi for Golem
BEST SOUND DESIGN – Timothy Cheeseman for Olga’s Self Insert Fanfiction
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE - Timothy Cheeseman for Olga’s Self Insert Fanfiction
BEST ACTRESS – Gemma Dart for The Takedown of Melanie Sprottle
BEST ACTOR – Pranam Janney for Khana Khazana
All finalists were also in the running for major trophies and prizes, thanks in part to our wonderful sponsors Still Searchin’ Productions, Event Cinemas Liverpool, Western Sydney University, MediaHub Australia, Luke Walker Productions, Sydney Prop Studios, Green Key Studio, Irierootsini Photography, Information & Cultural Exchange and Creative Plus Business.
Of course, the room erupted with cheers as the final winners were announced. We want to give a HUGE shout out to:
2020 Runner-up Best Student Film:
A Momentary Yearning by Faraaz Rahman
Nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Original Score and Best Actress
2020 Runner-up Best in the West:
The Takedown of Melanie Sprottle by Joanna Beveridge
Nominated for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematographer, Best Editor, Best Sound Design and Best Actress (WINNER)
And please keep the applause going for our 2020 WINNERS:
2020 Best Student Film WINNER:
Olga’s Self Insert Fanfiction by Timothy Cheeseman
Nominated for Best Director, Best Editor, Best Sound Design (WINNER) and Best Original Score (WINNER)
2020 Best in the West WINNER:
Khana Khazana by Arka Das
Nominated for Best Director (WINNER), Best Screenplay (WINNER), Best Cinematographer (WINNER), Best Editor, Best Sound Design and Best Actor (WINNER)
We had so many attendees commenting on the quality of films in the line-up and tensions were high as the final votes were tallied for the highly coveted Audience Choice Award. But in the end, there could only be one…
Congratulations to:
2020 Audience Choice Award WINNER:
Black Cat by Alan Nguyen
Nominated for Best Sound Design and Best Actor
*cue applause*
Congratulations again to all involved in the making of this year’s finalist films and thank you to everyone who joined us last night – we had a blast and we hope you enjoyed your night too.
Made in the West 2020 in-cinema events are complete, now we have just one screening to go!
Join us online next week to see ALL 28 finalist films on Saturday 28 November at Made in the West ONLINE Film Festival -- RESERVE YOUR TICKET now to watch the festival from home! We’re bringing the red carpet to you this year with all the highlights from the red carpet including interviews with the finalists and winners in a HUGE three hour short film marathon. We’ll share the private link with you on Saturday at 2pm and you will have 24 hours to watch the show. Tickets are $5 + booking fee.
You can see the 2020 Online Festival program on our website for the list of films plus links to all the filmmakers on socials so you can follow their journey this week as they share pics from the red carpet and their own at-home festival experience next weekend.
We'll be tuning in from the couch ourselves!
We hope you can join us for this final screening of the 2020 Made in the West line-up.
SSP