AUSTRALIAN conservation icon and the former Leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown, is coming to the Coffs Coast to connect with festivalgoers as part of the 2023 Screenwave International Film Festival (April 20 to May 5).

Together with Tasmania’s Tarkine rainforest, Bob Brown is the focus of the new Australian documentary, The Giants, which screens at the Jetty Theatre on Saturday April 29 before Bellingen Memorial Hall on Sunday April 30.

Directed by Laurence Billiet and Rachel Antony, The Giants is a poetic portrait of the fate of Tasmania’s wild forests and Brown’s personal life of activism to preserve them.

Bob has been a pivotal figure in Australian politics and conservation.

In 1983, the blockade of Tasmania’s Franklin River saw 1500 people arrested and 600 jailed, including Bob who spent nineteen days in Risdon Prison.

The day after his release in 1983, he was elected as the first Green into Tasmania’s Parliament.

Thirteen years later, he was elected to the Senate, leading the national debate on issues including climate change, conservation, and human rights.

But before his time in Federal Parliament, the Tasmanian Parliament, or even Risdon Prison, Bob Brown was captain of Coffs Harbour High School.

He used to travel in from Bellingen, catching the school bus to Raleigh and then the two carriage school steam train to Coffs each day.

And now, Bob is travelling back to the Coffs Coast region to connect with festivalgoers at the Screenwave International Film Festival, participating in Q and A sessions that will be held after each film screening in Coffs Harbour and Bellingen.

The Coffs Coast’s Screenwave International Film Festival presents over 140 film screenings and special events as part of its 2023 program, connecting film lovers with stories from around the world, and bringing icons like Bob Brown to the region to celebrate the telling of stories through cinema.

For more information, visit www.swiff.com.au.