Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Lights, Camera, Action & Awards!

If you’re looking for a flash, bang, wallop of a blog post – you’ve come to the right page. Not only is the Sydney Film Festival  (4-15 June) lighting up the celebrity hype in the city shortly but also Cremorne Point Manor would like to thank the (TripAdvisor) academy for awarding us their ‘Certificate of Excellence.’ This is incredible for us since it’s the FOURTH year in a row of being a recipient! Yes, nearly half a decade worth of consistent awards so gosh, you’re in good company when you come to stay at our affordable, Sydney hotel.

Now back to the Film Festival and 12 days of talent that brings in a huge crowd from locals and global creatives. Since the Festival’s grown so rapidly since mid last century after inspiration from the Edinburgh Film Festival, film makers showcase their movies over several venues. These include documentaries, family films, animations, short films and retrospectives. By the 1960’s and the sheer volume of budding Martin Scorsese’s, the subscribers exceeded 2,000. Originally located at the University, the Wintergarden in Rose Bay became the new home and by 2007, live gigs, shows and cabaret screenings at Metro Theater saw the Festival start to sweep around the whole region.
With a flip flop effect of ‘should we make this a competition or just a showcase’ over the years, the consensus now validates that audience members can vote for popular awards alongside industry prizes. With 10 awards up for grabs (we nabbed the TripAdvisor 4 years in a row ‘Certificate of Excellence’ so that’s taken. Oops, we already mentioned that!), these include the Sydney Film Prize, Peter Rasmussen Innovation Award and the Audience Award for Best Documentary.
Think the Award’s only for up and comers? Well take into account that past participants/winners include Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) who won the Sydney Film Prize for ‘Hunger.’  This year’s lineup includes Danny Boyle, Zach Braff and Gia Coppola -  granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola so you’re seriously in good company at this Festival. Gia’s showcasing Palo Alto featuring James Franco and Emma Roberts so you may see a few stars in the sky and on eye level, accounting some films are showcasing from 10pm.
You can buy individual tickets per movie or purchase Flexipass for 10, 20 or 30 movies so for the 30 movies, at $360, you’re paying $12 a film. That’s not a bad deal when you think about the cost of a standard cinema ticket and for die hard film buffs, this is like heaven in the Southern Hemisphere, right?
Oh no, the orchestra’s playing. A finale thank you to you, you and you!
 

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