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Elementor #1069

Welcome to Regional Australia’s biggest youth film festival!

SUBMISSIONS OPEN MAY 1ST 

SWIFF’s Nextwave Youth Film Festival, now in its sixth year, is on the hunt for the next wave of young Regional filmmakers. If you’re aged between 10 – 25 years, live within regional Australia, keen to make a film, get your work seen and win some awesome prizes…then we want to hear from you!

LEARN IT!

SHOOT IT!

SCREEN IT!



  • Subscribe to the workshop program
  • Watch the workshop videos
  • Learn and develop new skills
  • Utilise your newfound skills
  • Bring your story to life
  • Enter your short film into the competition!
  • Premiere your short film at SWIFF
  • Win some amazing awards and prizes
  • Have your film screen around the country

The show must go on (line)! With the on-set of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nextwave filmmaking workshops are going online for 2020. 

With everyone doing their part by practising social distancing, we’re redesigning Nextwave  – an adapted version of the workshop program to be delivered remotely online to regional, rural and remote students across Australia, with a learning program supported by teachers and home-schooling parents.

Nextwave has been redeveloped into a series of 10×15 minute fun, interactive and engaging video workshops that will cover the filmmaking process from writing, to shooting to editing with no previous experience necessary, along with mental health tips to keep students positive and get their creativity flowing. 

Utilise newfound skills from the workshop program to help create a short film that can be entered into the Nextwave Short Film Competition.

Films can be of any genre (comedy, drama, horror, documentary etc), to be less than 5 minutes and to creatively include the phrase “What’s Next?”

Submit your film into the competition by September 21st (midnight) to be in the running to win some awesome awards and prizes! 

Finalists will be announced in November.

The Nextwave short film finalists selected for 2020 will have their films screened at a gala awards night at the 2021 Screenwave International Film Festival (SWIFF), in Coffs Harbour in January.

The Nextwave Youth Film Awards (NYFA) celebrates the achievements of filmmakers from around Regional Australia aged 10-25. Held each January during SWIFF, the event includes a screening of all finalists’ films, plus a live music performance, special guests and an awards presentation.

Nextwave 2020 finalists will also have the opportunity to have their films screen Australia-wide during Youth Week 2021.


Click here for online workshop enquiries


Click here for competition guidelines


Click here for screening information

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