Football Film Festival – Riverside Theatre – Parramatta – Oct 9-11, 2015
The weekend of October 9-11 saw the opening of Australia’s first ever Football Film Festival at the Riverside Theatre, Parramatta. The festival’s organisers contacted the Australian Table Football Association a couple of months ago to see if we’d be interested in doing some demonstrations at the festival as it travels around the country. We gladly accepted the offer and so headed along with our boards and figures over the weekend.
The Film Festival was a great event all over. At the opening on Friday night, a good crowd gathered in the foyer. Because of the numbers (there was also a separate theatre production in the main theatre) we took up a space in the overflow courtyard. This was not quite as hectic as the main foyer, but a steady stream of serious onlookers came along, watched a bit and were able to have a go.
Saturday afternoon was the one that most intrigued us as football fans, with a forum on ‘Old Soccer, New Football’ which included an archival documentary of the growth of grass roots football in Australia in the early 70s, a documentary – ‘The Mourning After’ – about the infamous 2-2 draw between the Socceroos and Iran, and a final documentary on the Wanderers’ ACL campaign of 2014. The three films served to demonstrate the development of the game in Australia over the last 50 years, from the pre-national league era, through the NSL years and on to the A-League era. We were surprised at the relatively small audience for the forum (probably about 30 people) which also impacted on the numbers we had involved in Subbuteo. However, we were also able to move our gear into the main foyer for the afternoon, meaning that everyone that did attend had a good look and some enthusiastic patrons (and some even more enthusiastic film festival volunteers) got to have a go.
We knew that Sunday would probably be our busiest day as the evening’s film, about a couple of young Korean-Australians playing in the State Premier League, co-sponsored by some of the Korean-Australian cultural groups, was sold out a couple of weeks before the event. So we headed back out to the courtyard with our gear but, this time, the food stall also came outside and so a large portion of the 200 patrons made their way past our table. One of the film’s stars, Danny Cho, was one of the first to have a go at Subbuteo – though we didn’t realise who it was at the time! – and this soon brought a crowd along, followed by a documentary crew with their camera and lights. Our Subbuteo table then proved very popular and a number of groups had a go, including those there for the Football Film Festival and some others there for the other theatre performance who happened to see us.
A huge thanks to the organisers of the Football Film Festival for having us along – we were able to show our game to a few hundred people over the weekend, as well as getting to enjoy the festival for ourselves. The festival now moves on to Leichhardt, in Sydney, then on to Melbourne and Brisbane. So for Subbuteo fans, we can highly recommend the festival and, for football fans, get along and have a go at Subbuteo while you’re waiting for the films to begin!
For more photos, go to the Subbuteo Parramatta Facebook page.
Football Film Festival website
Football Film Festival dates:
Sydney 22-25 Oct
Brisbane 31 Oct – 1 Nov
Melbourne 6-7 Nov
