LAST week the iconic Bowraville Theatre played host to indie filmmaking workshops led by a pair of film makers who had been through the process, with some success, and wanted to share what they have learnt with others who may be interested in independent filmmaking.

Writer/director Rowan Devereux and producer Sophie Saville have recently produced an Aussie independent film, through their company Story Mill, called ‘Evicted’ which picked up The Audience Winner Award for Best Feature at the 2022 Sydney Film Festival.

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The duo are touring regions showing the film and offering these workshops along the way.

Conducting three well attended workshops at Bowraville, attendees were taken through the film-making process and taught the fundamentals of storytelling, self-funding, filming, sound, editing and all other aspects of this intricate and fascinating art form.

Recent high school graduate from Bellingen, Remu, told News Of The Area, “I loved that we discussed the whole process including post production and I am particularly interested in the writing aspects of a film.”

“Knowing all the steps and how much is involved was so informative and interesting and has further increased my desire to get into the film industry.”

Port Macquarie based TAFE teacher Anthony added, “I teach film and this was a great opportunity to meet filmmakers and the experience has reinvigorated my desire to make my own film.”

Film producer Sophie Saville added, “These workshops have gone very well and based on the questions we get, attendees are getting a lot out of them; however we think we may have to come back with a longer workshop to get into more depth about film making.”

The Story Mill team have now identified that there is a need for these types of workshops to empower emerging independent film makers with the type of information that they wish had been available to them when they started out.

The workshops and screenings of Evicted have been conducted in five regional locations so far and there are a number of towns remaining on this tour who will host the workshops before Rowan and Sophie head back to Sydney to work on their next project in independent film and television.

By Mick BIRTLES