By Sahar Foladi
While it may not be joyful to walk down the Covid memory lane, Covideo Twenty23 is bringing a twist through laughter.
The film festival revisits the awful 2020-21 period to the screens through an array of fantastic short films, guest speakers, performers, comedians, and a panel of judges on the night.
Filmmaker and festival director, Kuranda Seyit, said it’s a great time to look back and reflect over the Covid years.
“I was playing around with the word Covid and thought why not a short film festival about the pandemic and call it Covid-eo? And that is literally how it was born.
“I think nobody wants to remember Covid, and I am hoping that this event will be symbolic farewell, a cathartic experience, a collective healing.
“I know some people are a bit over Covid and don’t want to think about it but these films really do touch on beautiful things.”
The event will be launched by City of Greater Dandenong mayor, Eden Foster along with other councillors.
Residents can enjoy award winning films such as, The Ninth Tower, Lockdown Loopbox, A Room for One and The End of Myself.
This will be the second year the film festival will be held but a first for the Dandenong community.
“The first year we held it in Geelong and had a great turnout.
“We made it into night of entertainment where we had comedians’ performers and spoken word artists performing in between the films and that’s how we’ll do it in Dandenong.”
Dandenong High School student Aziz along with his brother are among the spoken word artists who’ll perform with Afghan music on the night.
Also appearing are some of Victoria’s best Spoken Word artists such as poet Amanda Anastasi as well as Rania Ahmed, who penned an award-winning poem ‘Red Velvet’ which highlights the sufferings of children in the Syrian war.
Rapper Hisham will also be there to entertain the crowd with his beats.
“We thought we’d give it a go in Dandenong our very multicultural vibrant city, I think the community will enjoy it,” Mr Seyit said.
“It will be a good family night out and if we can make it into a tradition that would be fantastic.”
Mr Seyit said it’ll be great to feature this event annually, but the only challenge would be to get new films in the competition.
“Its a great way to look back at it and say that was a time we went through and how we’ve come through strong and better.”
The film festival will be held in Walker Street Gallery on Saturday 17 June from 7pm.
Bookings can be made at greaterdandenong.vic.gov.au/greater-dandenong-council/events/covideo-twenty23-short-film-festival
