By BLAKE METCALF-HOLT

 

THE inaugural Gippsland International Film Festival honoured a documentary short film close to home.

After The Smoke directed by Latrobe Valley filmmaker Josie Hess not only screened at the region’s first-of-its-kind film festival, the story depicting the 2014 Hazelwood Mine Fire was awarded Best Gippsland Made Short Film.

Working in the industry for around 15 years, and previously collaborating with GIFF co-director Edward Yates in the past, Hess was thrilled to hear the news that an event to showcase the film would be within the region.

“I’ve always been a huge advocate for moving and bringing more culture to Gippsland, so finding out they’d actually done it, Ed and Alana (Auden), had created a Gippsland film festival, we were incredibly excited,” they told the Express.

“We submitted some of our projects and we were selected, which was a huge honour to be at the first inaugural Gippsland film festival.”

Hess and co-producer Stephanie Sabrinskas were then surprised to learn that they’d been acknowledged with an award after the film screened on the first day of the festival at the West Gippsland Arts Centre on Friday, March 13.

“I didn’t even know there was an award category, so that’s why it was a surprise,” Hess said.

“It was an incredible honour and I think what Ed and Alana have created, and the whole team, is so important, so timely and so necessary for Gippsland.”

Sabrinskas also applauded the efforts of the organisers, and was honoured to receive recognition for the film.

“It was a really wonderful surprise (and) I was really glad we were able to get that at the first GIFF,” she said.

The pair of environmental activists have worked together for more than six years, with their projects focussing on energy transition and mine rehabilitation.

Hosting the Coal Face podcast since 2022, they welcomed Wendy Farmer onto the show in their second episode, which laid the foundations for the eventual film.

Originally released in 2023, After The Smoke tells the story of the devastating Hazelwood Mine Fire through the eyes of Farmer – the local clean energy advocate and president of Voices of the Valley – and her family.

The film details the before, during and after effects when embers ignited in Hazelwood’s open cut, thrusting the audience through the revelations of severe health impacts for the region and the state government inquiry, which some locals felt was botched.

The project was greenlit through the Your Planet Short Docs initiative between the ABC, VicScreen and Doc Society.

“Stephanie and I had been thinking about telling a story that was to do with the Hazelwood Mine Fire for some time, obviously it’s a hugely pivotal moment in our community,” Hess said.

“We were able to produce the short with funding, which was really, really great as independent filmmakers.”

After premiering at the Sydney Film Festival in 2023, shortlisted for the Sustainable Future Award, the passionate storytellers toured After The Smoke across the country.

The film was primarily screened in 2024, which included one at Morwell’s Kernot Hall as a part of Hess and Sabrinskas’ Life After Coal event commemorating 10 years since the mine fire.

Life After Coal was launched due to funding that was secured following their Sydney premier, as part of Doc Society’s Climate Story Fund.

During their travels, each were baffled how many people were not aware of the magnitude and significant impacts of those fateful 45 days coming from Hazelwood.

“I had assumed that given it was on TV and it was this huge thing that more Australians would be aware that we had this huge disaster,” Hess said.

“But, it just hasn’t really necessarily permeated through.

“Any time we’d have a screening and people would come up to us, and not only be horrified that it had happened in their country and they didn’t know about it, but also be very interested to find out more about Latrobe Valley and our role in powering the state and our coal industry.”

Both Hess and Sabrinskas, who grew up in Morwell and Moe respectively, were living away at the time of the events at Hazelwood, meaning their eyes were also opened through their research and in speaking to people for the film.

The pair have worked on two projects centring on the Hazelwood Mine Fire, with the other being Ashes to Aftermath: 10 Years On From the Hazelwood Mine Fire, released in 2024 with Environment Victoria.

A feature length film is also currently in the works titled The Last Shift, which focusses on the closure of the Yallourn Power Station and the Latrobe Valley post-coal.

Hess has also directed the narrative feature Morgana in 2019, along with a number of other short films.

Sabrinskas also produced Yates and Auden’s 2024 short film, Feirg.

Following the success of GIFF, Hess hopes that this can etch a pathway for a more expansive film industry in Gippsland.

“Having places to screen locally and giving people a go is part of that building out of our cultural capacity within Gippsland,” they said.

“Secondly, is just funding. So, more governmental, but also private funding for filmmakers to create and tell our stories.

“On the other side, we do have a lot of content creators and people making work already, so I think having the avenues to publish them now, get them in front of audiences and elevate them to the status at film festivals is a huge deal.”

Sabrinskas echoed similar sentiments.

“Being a producer and filmmaker in a regional area, we do kind of miss a lot of film screenings … so, I think that it’s really important that we have this kind of cultural access in regional Victoria,” she said.

With the likes of Hollywood A-lister Liam Neeson and the mega corporation of Netflix filming in and around Moe, through Ice Road: Vengeance and the tv series Videoland, the region can continue to host film and television productions.

“Gippsland is an incredibly beautiful and diverse, huge region,” Hess said.

“We’ve got all sorts of filming locations, very affordable places for hire and rent.

“I think there are people thinking about this, I think we are underutilised in that way, the industry could definitely bring more of that out our way, but I think that then also requires incentives from government and council to bring those creative projects.”

After The Smoke is available to stream for free on ABC iview.