Festival brings new colours to Australian screens

According to Colourfest festival director Gary Paramanathan, the Australian screen industry is lacking ethnic and cultural diversity because creatives from different backgrounds are not sufficiently motivated to start a film/TV career.

“We need to publicly encourage people from different backgrounds to enter the industry. Many of them are scared to do so because they don’t see their faces and their stories on TV and films, so they think they’ll never get a chance,” Paramanathan told Encore.

That is why Paramanathan and co-director Joseph Hakim have founded Colourfest, a national short film festival that will showcase the work of filmmakers from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, on and off screen.

The Australian film industry is small and, according to Paramanathan, “even Australians aren’t really fond of watching Australian stories”, which makes it difficult for local productions to compete in the global market. To overcome this situation, he believes that Australia should take advantage of its unique multicultural composition, because it is an asset that other industries don’t have.