Viva Film is the brainchild of Towradgi-based artist and animator Angie Cass.

“It’s my ambition to make or grow the short film festival as big and as popular as the Yours and Owls [music festival],” she said.

Children and adults can enter with two key criteria to follow: the filmmaker must have a strong connection to Wollongong and the duration must run for at least one minute and no more than 20 minutes.

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Ms Cass said she has “been like a detective” in finding people from the film industry to enter and has been astounded by the calibre of the 200 entries so far.

“We’re really very surprised by the quality of films,” she said.

Genres of submissions have varied from animations to documentaries to a period drama told only through the score instead of dialogue.

Filmmakers may live overseas though have to either have grown up in the region or their film’s subject needs a strong Wollongong connection (through the actors or the plot).

Director of the Debby Ryan film Rip Tide, Rhiannon Bannenberg, will be judging submissions alongside Mat McCosker and Sam Ebzery.

Entries close at 11:59pm on Tuesday October 16.

Finalists will be notified at the end of the month and be show on November 10 as part of the Viva La Gong festival in MacCabe Park, Wollongong.

For more information on the festival visit: http://www.vivalagongfestival.org/Pages/getinvolved.aspx 

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