We’re excited for the official launch of Gold Coast Film Festival (GCFF), what can people of the Gold Coast expect to see from this year’s event?
This year we have over 80 different films, events and seminars coming to the Gold Coast across an epic 12-day program. There’s some really great films, exciting Q&As with directors, writers and composers and some really fun events too.

It’s such a massive line-up of events, can you tell us about some of the highlights?
Absolutely! We have some great Australian films such as Girl Asleep, which is fantastic. It just had its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival and it is an awesome off-beat kind of Wes Anderson style film. I highly recommend it! We’ve also got the writer and director coming in for a Q&A. We have the Australian premiere of a film called Remember, it’s a really gripping thriller about a man looking for the person who killed his family in a concentration camp and there’s another film called Drama, which is made by an Australian woman Sophie Mathisen. It’s a great film for people in their 20s as it’s about love, life and career and all sorts of things. Sophie is also coming up for a Q&A. The Women In Film lunch is definitely another highlight as we have filmmaker Gracie Otto flying in from Los Angeles to be our guest speaker for the day. She’s an incredibly talented writer, director, actress and editor. She also just launched an all-women production company with Rose Byrne called The Dollhouse Collective.

How do you select which films are included in the program?
We take a look at what’s premiering at various film festivals throughout the year and we also take entries. Those entries primarily come from our Queensland showcase films, which is our opportunity to showcase work that has either been shot in Queensland or has been created by Queenslanders. We also go out and seek the films that we think could be a really good fit. There are a lot of reasons the targets you start with aren’t always the ones you end up with but we are really excited that we’ve got a strong program this year with lots of different films.

Do you watch every single one?
Most of them! We have a programming team and the idea behind having a team is that at least two people see every film. Not every film is in my personal taste and that’s absolutely fine because it’s not a festival for me, it’s a festival for everyone. I don’t personally love horror films so I haven’t seen any of the horror films in the program but two of our awesome programmers have seen them and they love them.

Wow, there must be quite a few hours involved in that process?
There definitely is. I guess what you don’t see is that the stuff in the program is here but there was also a lot of stuff that we saw that didn’t end up making the program so there are many many hours involved.

Do you find that there’s a misconception out there that you just sit around and watch movies all year?
Yes! I think people probably think it’s quite easy to get a film into a film festival but actually it takes a lot of work. We have to negotiate quite heavily with both filmmakers and distributers for them to show their film at the Gold Coast Film Festival but it’s definitely worth every minute.

What do you personally consider to be this year’s must-see event?
Don’t make me choose between my babies! I am going to say Girl Asleep because a lot of the other films in our program will be coming out later through the year but Girl Asleep doesn’t have a release date yet so this is your only chance to see it.

You’ve stepped into the role of Festival Director for this year’s festival, what new elements have you introduced?
We have introduced YScreen, which is a program for schools. We’ve created study guides in association with the Australian Teachers of Media Queensland and we’ve got film critic workshops running alongside the films. They can only be booked by schools. We’ve also got the Chauvel Award, which was previously part of the Brisbane International Film Festival. This year’s winner is Claudia Karvan and she will be in conversation with one of Australia’s leading film critics, David Stratton, on Saturday April 9. It should be a really entertaining night looking back at the career of Claudia, I know my favourite Claudia Karvan moment was The Secret Life of Us, I think a lot of people loved that show as it represented a moment in Australian television history.

What are your hopes and aspirations for the festival?
The festival itself has grown incredibly in the last two to three years and I think we’re at that point where we are starting to be taken a lot more seriously on a wider level, not just on the Gold Coast. We have secured some incredible films and talent to come to the Gold Coast and also with things like SIPFest, we have the opportunity to really help emerging filmmakers hone their craft and that’s been a really great experience. Ultimately the aspiration is that we create an event where there is a real sense of anticipation from both filmmakers who want to premiere their film here and also audiences.

How did you get involved in the film industry?
My husband is a filmmaker so I have been involved in his work and travelled with him to various film festivals throughout the world. When I was in London I worked for a number of different agencies and had clients that were entertainment or leisure-based and worked a lot with film industry distributors so that’s where it all began. I started volunteering for the Gold Coast Film Festival in 2011 when I moved back to Australia and then took the role of National Publicist last year and then the Festival Director decided to move with her family to Victoria and so the position became available. I was very lucky to be selected.

What are your thoughts on the local creative scene at the moment?
There’s so much happening on the local scene at the moment, I think it’s a really exciting time to be on the Gold Coast. SIPFest is always great for unearthing local talent as there is a category for best Gold Coast film and we also have Emerge, Emerge is our arts showcase event where we take the best films from film schools and universities and give them the opportunity to see their films in the cinema. I’m really looking forward to seeing the journey as people go from these short films to make their next step, it’s going to be really exciting to see.

Only a Gold Coast local would know … the cheapest place to see a film is Nerang Cineplex.

FAVOURITE WEEKEND SPOT TO:
Perk up … Parc-Bah espresso in Southport.
Relax … The James Overell Park in Southport.
Dine … Tribeca NYC on Chevron Island.
Be inspired … Evandale Lake looking up to Surfers Paradise skyline.