And just like that it’s over for another year.

Thanks to all who came on the great roller coaster ride of emotions with us. Such fascinating worlds filled with even more fascinating characters.

Thanks to our wonderful volunteers – we couldn’t do it without you.

Thanks to our sponsors and partners for sharing our vision.

And muchas muchas gracias to the fantastic team at the Theatre Royal Castlemaine for providing such a wonderful venue and effortless expertise.  ♥

Time to start planning for next year.

Photo: Diana Domonkos Photography

Click the image above to view our gallery of the event.

The Castlemaine Documentary Film Festival (CDOC) is an annual three day event held in July at the iconic Theatre Royal in Castlemaine, central Victoria, Australia. It features a world class program of 13 films showcasing a series of fascinating worlds populated by even more fascinating characters. In 2018 there are 6 Australian documentaries, live Q&A sessions with filmmakers and contributors, and 7 films directed by women, 4 of them Australian.

Curated by dual Emmy Award-winning director, Geoffrey Smith.

OPENING NIGHT GALA | WORLD FIRST EVENT

Friday 20 July @ 7.30pm

CDOC’s special opening night event is a magical combination of film and live music performance.

GURRUMUL, a documentary considered to be one of the most important Australian films ever made will be shown together with the film’s director Paul Williams in conversation with our evening’s host, Leila Gurruwiwi of Marngrook Footy showfame

Then, in a world first, we will have manager/producer, Michael Hohnen, composer Erkki Veltheim, founding member of the Saltwater Band, Lloyd Malalung, and other key musicians from the film live on stage talking us through the incredible artistic and technical challenges involved in bringing together the vastly different words of indigenous and western music.

Led by their fascinating insights the evening will culminate with a live performance of selected pieces, featuring tracks from their chart topping “Child of the Rainbow” album.   A magical end to a magical evening.  

For the film’s director Paul Williams, the most important and beautiful part of GURRUMUL is this bringing together of two totally different musical worlds and cultures. To further enrich our understanding of this, Paul will add to the musicians’ conversation by showing several extended film scenes about their musical process which have never been seen before.

We are very excited about our opening night, and believe that it shows how two worlds and cultures can come together so that we can all journey together with hope, healing and reconciliation.

 

Castlemaine is an easy 90 minute drive from Melbourne, 1 hour from Ballarat and under 1 hour from Bendigo, Daylesford, Kyneton and Woodend.
Or make a weekend of it – there’s plenty of accommodation options to suit most budgets.
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