Gold Coast Film Festival 2015

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It is hard to believe, but the Gold Coast Film Festival concluded its main 2015 more than a month ago. With a new festival hub (The Arts Centre Gold Coast) and a large number of films screening, decisions made by the festival's creative team and board members seem to have paid off for the event. It has been confirmed that Gold Coast Film Festival 2015 was the "most successful to date", bringing in over 12,600 people/tickets sold and reaching its targeted growth increase of 20%. Film attendance also jumped an impressive 178% on 2014 figures.

While there is no denying from me that The Arts Centre Gold Coast is a lovely venue to host the annual Gold Coast Film Festival, I was a little bit sceptical about the decision to choose that location compared to the usual shopping centre option of previous years (Eg. Pacific Fair / Australia Fair). However, while they may not have had the sheer traffic of people to promote the festival to this year, this did not correlate to a decline in patronage. In fact, the opposite is true. This year the Gold Coast Film Festival had two main venues: The Arts Centre Gold Coast where many main screenings were held, and the Birch Carroll and Coyle Cinemas in Coolangatta which had a few unique screenings of its own alongside several simultaneous and repeat screenings. With 75 films on offer, multiple lectures from experts in the film industry and multiple other free/paid events on offer; there was clearly something to suit almost every taste.

While there were many films screened during this year's Gold Coast Film Festival, arguably one of the most important would be the ending night film. Out of so many they would have had to choose from, the festival team decided to settle with Ex Machina. With an almost full theatre to impress, it fell to this film to end the fantastic festival on a positive note - a challenge it succeeded in achieving. In my opinion, the film lacked a bit of the mass market appeal which could draw large crowds to see it. But like many of the niche appeal of many other films at the festival, I do not consider this to be a barrier. Instead, what it did provide in its almost two-hour runtime was an intellectual and thought-provoking storyline, complemented with some out of the box ideas which I personally found intriguing.

It seems like only yesterday when the Gold Coast Film Festival 2015 was kicked off at The Arts Centre Gold Coast, starting with its opening night film of Clouds of Sils Maria. But with nine days of the annual festival having now come to an end, only tomorrow (and a handful of films) remains. Those looking to take advantage of their final day to enjoy some genuinely tantalizing films will have the following to choose from:

With the Birch Carroll and Coyle cinemas at Pacific Fair having now closed their doors for major renovations, the annual Gold Coast Film Festival was once again after a new venue. After hosting single-screening events throughout 2014 at the location, the...

After almost a year of waiting, film fans living in or around the Gold Coast, Queensland will be able to descend upon The Arts Centre Gold Coast for another ten days of films, seminars, Q&A's with production team members...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrfcBerckRI After one year of tirelessly waiting since the festivities of 2014, film fans on the Gold Coast and surrounding regions have only one week to go until the annual Gold Coast Film Festival begins its 2015 season. To be...

The Gold Coast Film Festival 2015 team have today unveiled the list of films that they will be screening at The Arts Centre Gold Coast and various other locations around the city during this year's festivities - which are...

With their full program of locally and internationally produced feature films, documentaries, anime and more set to be unveiled later this month; the Gold Coast Film Festival Team have shared their official poster for the 2015 festivities. This poster,...

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