NT Travelling Film Festival

Creating a cinema in remote areas is no easy feat - but doing so gives those living out bush an experience that city-dwellers often take for granted. 

The NT Travelling Film Festival kicks off this month with a curated selection of local short films screened in Tennant Creek and Daly Waters, before heading around the Territory until June.

The brains behind the travelling cinema, Britt Guy, says the inaugural festival last year left her with some unexpected surprises.

“I didn’t anticipate how much having an actual cinema-sized screen would change people’s experience,” she says.

“It was loved by communities - that beautiful thing of being able to relax into two hours of story telling, which we take for granted in a big city.

“Within a community context people watch films through phones and computers and in a lot of places there are some small scale projectors set up, but having a whole cinematic experience of going to the movies and having your stories reflected back to you is an amazing experience for a person - particularly when there’s not a lot of it.

"It was such an indulgence and a great community night out to sit under the stars and take in the films.”

The NT Shorts Program features films created in the Territory over the last 12 months, and will be screened across the NT inlcuding Darwin, Kakadu and Nhulunbuy.

“We try to get a diverse mix of film genres, locations and also films that capture the essence of the NT at that time, and particular ideas or concerns that are being explored within communities,” Guy says.

Tennant Creek will screen a short program to make way for the filmmakers in the community to share their work.

Tennant Creek Sat 6 Apr | 7-10.30pm | Barkly Arts Backyard | $12 | nttravellingfilmfestival.com

Daly Waters Sat 13 Apr | 8.30-10.30pm | Daly Waters Pub | free | nttravellingfilmfestival.com