THE FESTIVAL
The Gold Coast Film Festival brings diverse Australian and International films, filmmakers and film events to the Gold Coast.
As the city’s flagship film event, the Gold Coast Film Festival promotes the Gold Coast as a major Australian filmmaking destination, helps develop the filmmakers and crew working in the local industry and is committed to supporting the continued economic benefit and job creation by the screen industry in the region.
In 2017, we became an AACTA-Award qualifying film festival for feature films.
Our location is one with a heritage of filmmaking, with international filmmaking introduced on the Gold Coast in the late 1980’s. Fast-forward to 2017 and major international films Unbroken, Pirates of the Caribbean, Thor: Rangarok and Aquaman have chosen the Gold Coast’s incredible locations and highly competent crew to shoot their multi-million dollar films.
The 16th annual Gold Coast Film Festival ran across 12 days in April 2018 with over 110 film and film related events in 13 different Gold Coast locations, the festival entertained and inspired over 16,000 people.
QUEENSLAND SCREENWRITING AWARD 2019
For two years, the Gold Coast Film Festival has run “Script to Screen” a live script read of a feature film script . In 2017, local actors performed the script STRIPPED by India Dupre and in 2018, BLUE WATERS by Shirley Pierce.
In 2019, the Gold Coast Film Festival will expand upon the live script read opportunity and will open submissions to feature film scripts from Queensland based writers and with thanks to The Heaton Group, award $5000 cash prize to the winning script.
Script submissions will be open to feature film scripts of a recommended 80 to 120 pages from Queensland-based writers. Entrants are invited to submit their full script alongside a synopsis paragraph.
The jury will select three finalists, awarding one runner up and one overall winner.
The Heaton Group is delighted to support the Gold Coast Film Festival by introducing the Inaugural cash prize of $5,000 to the winner of the Queensland Screenwriting Award 2019.
The prize also includes the opportunity for a live Script Reading with actors on Sunday 14th April 2019 at the Gold Coast Film Festival.