An Adventist film-maker from Australia has won a top prize at the Indian Film Festival in Melbourne, Victoria.
Robbie Fatt’s entry The Vegemite Sandwich won the Short Film award at the annual festival, held August 15-25. Based on a true story, the film features a light-hearted narrative with an underlying message.
Reflecting on the win, Mr Fatt said, “It was a big surprise to win this award considering the scale of the festival, and I was lucky to attend and meet a lot of my favourite filmmakers from some of my favourite films.”
Mr Fatt created The Vegemite Sandwich after completing his first 90-minute feature-length Christian movie Everything I Am.
“I wanted to do something different afterwards and so wrote a comedy film script as a break from my more drama intensive work,” he said.
“The film went from pre-production to completion over a nine-month period, and was particularly difficult since we were dealing with five child actors with various levels of skill and experience.
“This also quickly became a highlight, as the kids all got along, and we formed some strong friendships and relationships with them and their families.”
Mr Fatt’s journey in filmmaking began during his school years, eventually leading him to pursue an undergraduate degree in the field.
“It’s been a crazy ride shooting over 10 short films, my own feature film, and also over 40 documentaries while working with Gary Kent at The Incredible Journey,” he said.
“I’ve been privileged to have the opportunities to work with friends and family in order to make a lot of these projects. My first two major films were both accepted into the International Christian Film Festival, which is the biggest Christian film festival in the world. For me, it is just the start of my journey as I believe my best work is still yet to come.”
Mr Fatt views filmmaking as the ultimate form of artistic expression. “It is story and literature, mixed with photography, performance and music, combining together to create a universal language of human experiences,” he shared.
“Film has the ability to move people to tears, laughter and conviction, and I love how it is a vehicle for social critique, but also one of the easiest ways to spread a spiritual message. As a creative person, I find meaning and purpose in pursuing the arts, and believe it is essential that Christianity is engaged in reaching people with every resource they have available.”
Currently based in Europe, Mr Fatt is completing a masters degree in film directing with the Kino Eyes Film Masters program.
“Afterwards my plan is to shoot more films, hopefully collaborating with like-minded people on stories and ideas that are more relevant to 21st century society,” he said.
“I have a number of scripts I have been planning to shoot but my ultimate dream is to make a movie on the book of Daniel. Hopefully one day I can start my own film production company and create films which are unique and different to the mainstream.”
To view The Vegemite Sandwich and other films by Robbie Fatt visit his YouTube channel.
