Short Film Competition & Festival

Run every few years, the Creative Wollongong Short Film Competition provides opportunities for amateur filmmakers to hone and showcase their craft by entering a short film in one of two categories, 12 - 24 years and 25+.

Mirroring a Tropfest tradition, all entries are required to hero the same ‘signature item’. In past years, this was a banana and a bike helmet. In 2024, the hero item was 'water'.

The inaugural Creative Wollongong Short Film Festival was held at Lakeside Reserve on 7 September 2024 and featured the "best of" entries from this year's competition.

And the 2024 winners are...

The festival, aimed at turning the spotlight on one of our most iconic natural assets, Lake Illawarra, was a great success with around 400 film fans joining friends and families of the filmmakers and actors for a screening under the stars.

We hosted it in partnership with Screen Illawarra, Shellharbour City Council and the NSW Government

Read for a roundup of the winners for each category.  They shared in $6,000 worth of prizes, short courses and equipment hire from Australian Film Television and Radio School, Ten Alphas, Wollongong Camera Hire and SF3.

Best film

Best performance

Celebrity judges

Michael Theo (actor)

Michael Theo is an aspiring actor and voice over artist. He was the break-out star of the ABC/Northern Pictures documentary series, Love on the Spectrum series 1 & 2. Michael captured the hearts of viewers and quickly became a fan favourite not only in Australia but around the world, and appeared on many shows including his favourite, Ellen in the US.

Michael made his professional acting debut in the Emmy award-winning kids drama, HardBall and he recently finished filming a leading role, alongside Ben Miller, Sally Phillips and Gia Carides in the 8-part comedy drama series Austin, which will air on the ABC in 2024. Michael is a strong believer in ‘it’s our differences that make us all special’. He has used both his online platforms and widely successful podcast, Mr A+, with DM Podcasts, to create a safe space to express & celebrate these differences.

Vincent Sheehan (producer)

Vincent Sheehan is an award-winning film and television producer. His producing credits include the feature films Mullet, Little Fish and Jasper Jones. Vincent was an executive producer on Animal Kingdom as well as The Rover starring Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce. He was also executive producer on The True History of the Kelly Gang.

For TV he co-created and produced The Kettering Incident which won the SPA, AACTA and Logie Awards for best mini-series. More recently, Vincent produced Kitty Flanagan's comedy series Fisk for ABC TV and his latest feature film Shayda, starring Cannes best actress award winner Zar Amir Ebrahimi, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film festival winning the Audience Award.

Nick Bolton

Nick is Chair of Screen Illawarra and a filmmaker from Bulli. His production company TEN ALPHAS focuses on corporate and commercial content, while TEN ALPHAS FiLMS is for creative and original content. He was Executive Producer on Finding Addison, the Australian Academy Best Short Film for 2024, filmed in Wollongong. His previous film Mate was Oscar longlisted in 2023.

Nick was nominated for services to Arts and Culture in the City of Wollongong Awards 2024.

Nick teaches at AFTRS and Sydney Film School, and as an actor is represented by Victoria Jackson at Phoenix Talent.

Project partners

This competition is a creative partnership between:

• Wollongong City Council (including Wollongong Art Gallery and Wollongong Youth Services)
• Screen Illawarra
• Careways
• Shellharbour City Council
• Coequal
• Bus Stop Films.

Past winners