Despite what you may have heard, Brendan Cowell's film Ruben Guthrie isn't an autobiography.

Cowell wrote and directed the film, about the titular character, a advertising whiz-kid who lives a party lifestyle but is given the ultimatum to quit drinking for a year.

Cowell himself gave up booze after one-too-many benders, but he doesn't see Ruben Guthrie as autobiographical.

"Well, it's based on experiences but no, not at all," Cowell says.

"I am not in advertising. I don't have parents who own restaurants. I don't have a Czech supermodel girlfriend. I don't live on the water. But all my writing is based on things that happened to me, then they are affected by invention, theft and embellishment, until they seem completely unlike my experience."

His decision to quit drinking made more than a few people in his social circle uncomfortable and he's expecting some in the theatre watching this film might find it hits a little too close to home.

"Every story should be close to home for an audience or there is no point in making it," he said.

"I realised that my change was nothing to do with me, and that alcohol especially, in Australia, is a huge issue that people are reluctant to discuss. Other connected issues we are reluctant to discuss are suicide, mental health and the environment."

Some of those issues could well end up being discussed after the film screens on Friday night, as the start of the Wollongong leg of the Travelling Film Festival.

Cowell is doing a Q&A after the film and he doesn't mind meeting moviegoers face to face.

"I've been doing such things all my life so it's no big deal," he says.

"After four weeks of press there is not much I haven't been faced with, and mostly I like the interaction with the audience - after all, that is why I made the thing."

The Travelling Film Festival runs from Friday to Sunday night.

Saturday's films include Women He's Undressed, a documentary on Kiama-born Hollywood costume designer Orry-Kelly; The Hunting Ground, a documentary about rape on American college campuses; and Victoria, a German heist film shot in one take.

There are four films on Sunday, including the multi-award-winning Spanish crime thriller Marshland and India's The Crow's Egg, which has been dubbed the next Slumdog Millionaire.

Travelling Film Festival manager Alicia Emery says is it a great opportunity to bring these films to Wollongong.

"These carefully selected films were a highlight of the 2015 Sydney Film Festival, where they played to packed cinemas and great applause," Emery says. "We hope South Coast film lovers will enjoy them as much."

GLEN HUMPHRIES