Ocean Film Festival back in Broome to celebrate its 10th anniversary

The annual Ocean Film Festival is back in Broome in March for its 10th anniversary, and has named Broome the third most ocean-loving city in Australia. The Ocean Film Festival offers a 2½-hour program showcasing films from independent filmmakers worldwide. In the last decade, the festival has shown the work of 89 filmmakers and hosted 771 screenings in 14 countries to 325,670 audience members. Ahead of this year’s event, the festival has revealed a collection of impressive statistics gathered over the last decade — such as that 2.34 per cent of Broome’s population has attended a screening in previous years, the third most attendees per capita in the country. “It was endearing to see that Broome holds the third highest number of film festivalgoers in recent years,” said Ocean Film Festival chief executive Jemima Robinson. “As one of Australia’s oldest towns and home to the oldest operating open-air picture theatre in the world, it’s fitting that a large community of our Ocean Film Festival lovers are found there.” This year, the festival will showcase seven films from WA to the North Pole. There are plenty of films that feature Australia’s oceans including The Sanctuary, a story about a man’s life with the ocean, Gone with the Wing, about a Victorian man who attempts to cross the Bass Strait on a Wing Foil, and Hypnotise, a story of a 130m artificial reef in Australia’s east. The list also includes Whale Dreaming, a story of a Djirringanj Elder who shares his people’s connection to whales and dolphins and Casey the Octopus, about a woman who stumbles across a life-changing decision. Other films are international, like Corners of the Earth: Kamchatka, about two filmmakers and two surfers in search of new waves on the Russian coast, and In Search of a Frozen Ocean, about five explorers and scientists who head to the Artic Ocean to learn why the earth has lost sea ice. The tour will begin in Australia before heading to Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Vanuatu, the US and the UK. The Ocean Film Festival will be held on Saturday, March 11 at Sun Pictures in Broome. Tickets can be purchased online via the festival website.