The festival will take place on the October long weekend and films have come from across the globe.

From a touching comedy about a mattress called Carl wandering the inner city looking for a loving home, to a black comedy about a puppet detective who can’t blink, audiences will be sure of a few laughs.

All films are PG rated and contain no gratuitous sex or violence.

“What astonished the festival judges this year was the huge budgets some productions spent on their short film.

“One of the things we impress upon people is the fact you can make a good short film for 20 bucks. Some of the productions entered into this year’s festival were massive, truly multi-million dollar productions, but ironically, none of the big bucks flicks made the final cut,” Greg said.

There were also some bizarre entries from New York but these didn’t prove popular with the judges either.

The venue will again be the Forster Coastal Patrol building on Forster breakwater creating a stunning backdrop as evening falls.

Sessions will be at 4pm and 7pm Saturday and Sunday. Drinks and food will be available from 7pm each night, with the screening commencing at 8pm.

Nine short films, each of approximately 10 minutes duration, will be shown in each session.

On Monday there will be a ‘best of the fest’ showing.

On Sunday at 3pm a special showing of the unusual film Emma Smith: My Story will take place. This movie has been produced by Michael Kennedy, president of the Joseph and Emma Smith Family Association in collaboration with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It chronicles Emma’s life from her childhood through to her courtship and marriage to Joseph Smith, who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830, and later the challenges she faced being driven from state to state because of religious persecution.

Local pioneer John Wright is a descendent of Joseph and Emma’s family so filmmaker Michael Kennedy was keen to show the film here. He will be in Forster for the screening and is looking forward to learning more about these local links.

Forster Film Festival is a project of Community Resources, a not-for-profit charity organisation whose mission is to encourage and support the learning of skills involved in film making, especially where students are young and Aboriginal and at risk of incarceration, and to make available a venue and event where locally-made films can be shown.