Not only are actors at a Kiama studio holding their own against the region's best, they're also set to showcase the municipality on screens throughout the country.
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Emily Stratten established the Kiama Actors Studio in 2012.
The 21-year-old was named Kiama's Young Citizen of the Year at the Australia Day awards in January.
The studio, based at Kiama and Berry, does both film and theatre, and has almost 200 actors, from the region and beyond, who hone their craft and can also learn about filmmaking and other skills.
"We like to base half of the year on theatre and half on film, and we've just completed our theatre side of things," the owner and director said.
"We did really well at both the Wollongong and Shoalhaven Eisteddfods [on June 3-4].
"At Shoalhaven, we came first and second in groups ... and at Wollongong we came third in each of the sections, which is awesome because it was one of the biggest years yet of Wollongong.
"Last year we came first, and the year before that we also came first, so we've had really good runs.
"We also have Sydney Eisteddfod coming up, so we'll take our best groups up to Sydney and see how they go."
Ms Stratten said the studio had been making films since 2012.
"This year there's an adult class, they're making a film for 24 film festivals, [including] some national and international," she said.
"We'll probably have six or so short films that we'll enter [in various festivals] and they range from drama, comedy, romance, everything.
"We'll start off with Tropfest."
The studio also has a feature horror film called The Welcoming in the works.
"We had an audition call-out and we had actors from all over Australia actually turn up here."
Ms Stratten said they would shoot a trailer first, with the aim of securing funding to make the film.
She hopes the trailer will be completed before August.
"I've always liked shooting horror films, a lot of the kids enjoy shooting them as well," she said.
Ms Stratten writes the scripts for the studio, all their pieces for the eisteddfods and also end-of-year shows; she estimates she has written, directed and edited almost 100 short films, and worked on nearly 100 theatre pieces.
"So I decided now I'll take on the challenge of writing a two-hour, full-length feature, and we had a really good response," she said.
"It's pretty cool, because Kiama is where it's going to be shot.
"It's good, because you can get a mix of pretty much everything.
"You've got the beach, the town, bushland, farms," she said.
"You can have totally different films based in different parts of Kiama, so it's a really good place to use as a film set.
"We've had a big audience at a lot of our shows. And the films that they're seeing are all shot in Kiama, so the town is really a central element to the films."
