Image 1: One of 13 full houses at BOFA 2015

A BIG BOFA THANK YOU

We’re delighted to report that, thanks to your continuing support, BOFA has registered another year of growth, with box office up a hefty and healthy 20% on 2014.

LOOKING BACK AT BOFA 2015

Another Tasmanian Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival been and gone (our sixth). Here are a few of the things you might have missed.

Interstate visitors, film lovers from around Tasmania and our loyal local audience gave us our best box office result ever – more than a third of our 35 movies were sellouts. BOFA 2015 featured a wide variety of amazing films, including for the first time five Tasmanian features, three of them World Premieres. People are still talking about unforgettable features and documentaries like Teheran Taxi, My Love Don’t Cross That River, The Legend of Barney Thomson, Another Country, 45 Years, the BOFA Red Carpet screening Death or Liberty and the BOFA Retrospective The Tale of Ruby Rose. The general feedback was that this was our best and most diverse program since BOFA began.

Image 2: Roger Scholes talks about his film The Tale of Ruby Rose

The BOFA Red Carpet Screening, the World Festival Premiere of the Tasmanian co-production Death or Liberty, was a glamorous affair, with a capacity audience and after party, with superb Tasmanian food and wine, enjoying the music of Mick Thomas who composed the soundtrack for the film.

Opening Night film on the Wednesday was Frackman, a disturbing look at the risks of coal seam gas development, produced by BOFA’s Artistic Director Trish Lake.

Image 3: A packed house for the BOFA Red Carpet screening Death or Liberty
Image 4: Bruce Potter and Rosemary Armitage MLC
Image 5: Film makers Grant and Natalia Hennessy
Image 6: Jen Brown & Annie Greig
Image 7: Producer Trish Lake and Director Richard Todd talk about their film Frackman on BOFA Opening Night

Our BOFA In Action sessions Creating Community Change and Creating Innovative Regions attracted participants from all around the state and formulated plans for social, community and economic change over the next 12 months. In the film industry, apart from showing five Tasmanian features and many Tasmanian short films, our annual masterclass was well attended, with visiting film professionals passing on their knowledge and experience to our aspiring film makers. The film industry in Tasmania is alive and well.

Image 8: BOFA in action
Imge 9: Visiting UK speaker Robert Woolfe

On Saturday night, the film industry gathered at the Design Centre to celebrate the annual BOFA Devil Awards. Sydney film maker Erin Good won the BOFA Short Film Award, while Launceston script writer Vince Bailey won the Best Tasmanian Script Writing Award for Iceman, which was read to an appreciative audience by Mudlark Theatre actors on Sunday. The BOFA Entrepreneurial Spirit Award went to the team from Roar Films in Hobart, who co-produced this year’s BOFA Red Carpet film Death or Liberty. Finally the BOFA Champion Award went to Tony and Sue Walker, for their active support of BOFA since its inception in 2010.

Image 10: Festival Director Owen Tilbury, film critic Peter Krausz and BOFA Devil Short Film winner Erin Good.
Image 11: Team BOFA- Owen & Helen Tilbury, BOFA Chamnpions for 2015 Tony & Sue Walker, and Trish Lake

The inaugural Innovative Tasmania Awards were a highlight of this year’s Festival. More than 2000 votes were lodged in the public judging, looking for the most innovative ideas in five different categories. Winners had come up with a variety of  innovations from a better malting barley to a swarm sensing technology for honey bees. 

The inaugural BOFA Drive In at the Aurora Stadium carpark, was a successful innovation. The two films, Jaws and the Australian production Sucker, attracted families and friends in a variety of vans, hot rods and sedans.

The BOFA food and wine tours were also a popular addition to the Festival, emphasising the reputation of the Tamar Valley as one of the country’s  finest gourmet destinations.
And of course the food and coffee vans and the Festival Lounge were again the between-films meeting places for everyone at BOFA 2015.

Image12: Saturday night at the BOFA drive-in
Image13: Karl Mattingly of Slow Capital was keynote speaker at the  Innovative Tasmania Awards
Image14: Festival Director Owen Tilbury with Darren Cundy, UTAS Business Development & Tech Transfer and Anthony Arundel, Australian Innovation Research Centre at the Innovative Tasmania Awards
Image15: Good food and coffee at the Annexe
Image 16: the Festival Lounge