Whilst I am keen to tell you about the Grassroots Documentary Sydney Premiere last week, it would be remiss of me to not mention the boost to the NSW Government’s drought relief package.

The State Government have added $284 million to the drought relief package providing access to seven-year, $50,000 interest free loans for provisions including fodder and grain to sustain stock on hand and install key water infrastructure.

Of course, many farmers would know the disappointment and frustration of having to sell key breeding stock after many years of work to develop herds. This is one of the intentions behind assisting landholders to maintain some stock on farm. You can find out more information from the Department of Primary Industries website.

As I mentioned, a group from the Central West attended the Sydney Premiere of the SCINEMA film festival in Sydney last week. The evening included the screening of Grassroots, which one Best Documentary, featuring agronomist, Guy Webb and Soil C Quest and talks about how the project came to be and how it is progressing.

The film, Directed by Frank Oly and Written and Produced by Tegan Nock was exceptionally well received and to date has been screened in Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra (sold out) and Melbourne (sold out), and will have its final screening in Perth on June 21. Grassroots was awarded Best Documentary and runs for 20 minutes.

This year 1,539 films were submitted for SCINEMA, with entries from all around the world.

The judges for 2018, were: Sally O’Donoghue, manager of ABC iView; Alison Leigh, editorial director of the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers; Damian Harris, co-founder of SCINEMA; Cris Kennedy, co-founder of SCINEMA, Manager Education and Outreach at National Film and Sound Archive of Australia; Prof Alan Duffy, Lead Scientist of The Royal Institution of Australia; and Maya Newell, award-winning Australian film director.

Whilst all of the films were interesting and unique, the film iRony that won Best Short Film, was a stand out. Written, Produced and Directed by Radheya Jegatheva, a 19 year old from Australia, it explored the relationship between man and technology told from the perspective of a phone. I know that might all sound a bit ‘out there’, but its strong theme was around how we rate ourselves depending on our social media and was adapted based on the poem ‘Seven Billion’.

We are looking forward to screening Grassroots locally soon. Visit centralwestlachlanlandcare.org. Until next week, happy Landcaring!