Dorrigo's Story

Funding, support and expertise through the Townlife program has encouraged Dorrigo to initiate a successful Film and Documentary Festival which is seeing other creative spin-offs for the town and its people.

"The Dorrigo Film & Documentary Festival has identified a new industry and branding opportunity for Dorrigo."
Mark Merritt, festival organiser.

Facing the challenges

Dorrigo is a plateau town of approximately 2,400 people 50 km from Coffs Harbour with agriculture, tourism and aquaculture its main industries.

Dorrigo pretty plateau

It is a strong community with a highly developed sense of self, situated in a niche right in the middle of some of Australia's most beautiful countryside. Numerous national parks are within a short drive of the town.

Dorrigo is a town at the top of a cliff and the road to the coast has always been a barrier to the town's development and expansion. The cyclone that hit the New South Wales coast in early 2001 caused major damage to this road, which has been reflected in the town's outlook.

Being an isolated community, the people of Dorrigo are quick to develop a siege mentality, looking inwards to the basic needs of life. The resistance to things from the 'outside' had resulted in a lack of modern infrastructure and business opportunities.

Our project

The idea of attracting more people to experience Dorrigo at the top of that cliff grew out of the local movie club which used the town's cinema once a month to show 16 mm films borrowed from the National Archives.

A community development co-ordinator in Bellingen suggested to the movie club operator, Mark Merritt, that they team up to produce a film festival for Dorrigo. And so The Dorrigo Film & Documentary Festival - 2002 (DFDF) was born as a three-day event, held on the June long weekend.

Dorrigo Film Festival

The festival program went beyond a few nostalgic film screenings to achieve instant cult status in the industry for its history of documentary film, competitions for independent filmmakers, training workshops and lectures given by many documentary industry leaders.

Three venues ran concurrently all staffed by local volunteers as projectionists, venue managers and staff.

Those who attended ranged from professional and amateur documentary makers, students, film buffs, locals and holidaymakers.

What we've achieved

• Local businesses reported record takings and the town was practically booked out on the festival weekend.
• We've decided that the Dorrigo Film & Documentary Festival should return in 2004 as a two-yearly event and have already received offers of sponsorship from local businesses.
• The latest spin-off of DFDF is a push to set up a Community Technology Centre (CTC) in Dorrigo. The festival highlighted the need for Dorrigo to have modern communication infrastructures like broadband and teleconferencing facilities.
• Dorrigo High School is very excited about this development, especially because of the HSC subjects related to mass media and communications studies.
• The festival ignited a 'can do' attitude among the younger members of the community.
• Since DFDF - 2002 a young man has organised and run The Dorrigo Folk & Bluegrass Festival which was a big success.

This second festival within two months is really getting the town buzzing. We're even getting feedback from Bellingen people that they want what we have; comments like "why don't you bring it down here?" and "Wow, things are really happening up there in Dorrigo, it's really changing these days".

Volunteers

How the Townlife Development Program has helped

The Townlife Development Program (TDP) funding, plus the support and encouragement given by its staff was of immense value.The experience and expertise of the TDP consultant was "a rock" and an inspiration.

Being recognised as a worthwhile and viable project, the grant gave an authority and credibility to the project and to our town, which made it easier to gain local and national business sponsors.

The success of DFDF - 2002 has left many mainstream filmmakers and documentary makers looking forward to the next one.

The town of Dorrigo has had its eyes opened to the fact that people in the world do care about it, there are positive influences that can come from outside of the community and maybe we should begin to import some new technologies and modern ways of thinking.

What we're doing now

• The Dorrigo Film & Documentary Festival has identified a new industry and branding opportunity for Dorrigo.
• The Dorrigo Folk & Bluegrass Festival is a "sure thing" for next year.
• The Dorrigo CTC will be in place and on-line via a broadband satellite up-link by March 2003. The Dorrigo CTC will make it much easier for DFDF festival staff in the run-up to its next event in 2004.
• Dorrigo itself is experiencing an increase in youth video production getting ready to enter the next round of DFDF competitions.
• DFDF is attempting to establish a regional training program by developing partnerships with many institutions and individuals throughout our area. These partnerships and training programs are all related to performance, stagecraft, communications technologies and the accessing of mass media.

For further information

Contact	:	Mark Merritt, DFDF
Phone	:	02 6657 5340