Throughout 2020, as festivals across Australia and the world were shunted out of venues into those comparatively forlorn spaces of the ethereal online, or forced to postpone their dates, or to call the whole show off entirely, one little film festival in Western Australia’s south west was able to bravely forge ahead with its first ever hybrid program.

To be fair, ‘little’ may be misapplied to CinefestOZ. Though its program is substantially humbler than its two behemoth counterparts in the east (those being Sydney Film Festival and Melbourne International Film Festival), CinefestOZ is pretty big, if you’re going by geographical swath. With its largest hub in Margaret River, the destination festival also extends into the regional towns of Busselton, Augusta and Bunbury – all known for their cultural capital, homespun hospitality, getaway vistas and (this is wine country, after all), gustatory pleasures.

The Drovers Wife

Leah Purcell in The Drovers Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson, which she wrote, directed, co-produced and stars in.

This year from 25 to 29 August – unless the unthinkable happens, touch all the wood at hand – CinefestOZ will again run a hybrid...