The idea for Girls On Film Festival started back in 2013 when Cherchez la Femme held Feministmas at the George Revival Cinema. Sharing a passion for film, feminism and special events, the original trio of Karen Pickering, Gus Berger and Ben McKenzie dreamed up a film festival that was more slumber party than competition, more mixtape than jury selection, more laidback than prestigious, and a rockin' good time for feminists who love to watch movies.



Finding nothing like GOFF in the Melbourne movie scene, we recruited the A-Team of Madonna Prior, Tara Judah, Ally Oliver-Perham, Breeana Dunbar, Simone Flanagan and Rohan Spong, choosing the name as a tribute to the Riot Grrrl culture that had inspired us, signalling that we want to share the space with different age groups, and to reclaim the phrase Girls On Film as a positive one that was about highlighting feminism in film, rather than women being objectified by the male gaze.

We're curating a program of incredible movies - underrated gems, cult classics and beloved feminist favourites - with special introductions, panels and conversations between sessions, as well as a party every night and performances peppered throughout.

We're drawing on our love of Riot Grrrl culture, with the festival including a zine program, live music performances, poetry, activism, badges, and a DIY ethic. Instead of feeling ignored because other film festivals, and established cinemas, often show a majority of movies made by and about men, we decided instead to make the kind of event we wanted to attend - an independent, feminist film festival that was fun.

GOFF is a chance to bring together feminism, fandom and film culture into a festival for movie lovers who want to see female characters, filmmakers and storylines that are empowering to women and girls. It's also gonna be a helluva three-day party where you can meet other feminists, activists and fans in a space created just for you.

What is GOFF?

Our goal with this campaign isn’t just to run GOFF this year, but to set it up as an ongoing annual event. This means establishing relationships and infrastructure that will last and grow with us every year. The full budget for the festival is around $18,000 - $20,000; our target of $12,000 will let us cover the major upfront costs, which break down roughly like this:

Pozible fees $1,000
(Pozible fee of around 5%, transaction and credit card fees)

Reward costs $1,000
(Materials and manufacturing costs for merch, consumables (photoshoot, Mini-GOFF), venue hire (workshop) etc.)  

Venue and Bar $4,500 
(for three days with security, cleaning, and a license until after midnight) 

Equipment $1,800 
(including screens, projector, projectionist, microphones, sound system) 

Film Rights $2,200 
(negotiating the rights to screen films through local and international distributors) 

Promotion $1,500
(design, website construction and hosting, printing, marketing and advertising)

With this solid foundation - the perfect venue and continuously-staffed bar, high quality projection and screening equipment and personnel for a brilliant viewing experience, an impressive collection of films and the word shared through our communities across Melbourne - we have every confidence we’ll fund the rest of the festival’s costs through ticket and merchandise sales.

GOFF will take place at Northcote Town Hall, a venue we chose because of its growing reputation as an incubator for exciting artistic projects and its excellent accessibility and proximity to public transport. It’s the biggest item in our budget and despite viewing cheaper venues we knew it was the right one for us, so a challenge we face is ensuring that we raise the funds to pay for it and avoid losing our deposit.

We’ll also be joining a very crowded festival and arts calendar in Melbourne, which makes this city so great for artists and punters, but can also be a tough climate in which to gain traction and support for new events. We are confident in meeting this challenge, having such an experienced team with a proven track record of running and publicising independent projects of similar scale, including regular events, one-off specials, and shows during other festivals. We chose the dates after exhaustive research into similar and related events, and by considering other factors like sporting fixtures, public holidays and annual observances. We’re also thrilled with the design aesthetic created for GOFF by Ally Oliver-Perham and feel sure this will help us cut through and connect with an excited and engaged audience.

The final challenge we face is securing the screening rights for the films we desperately want to show at the first GOFF, and this problem is related to both money and availability. Fortunately, our tenacious and committed Programming Team of Tara Judah, Gus Berger and Rohan Spong are working hard to negotiate rights to screen the films we want at prices we can handle, sometimes by tracking down producers directly. Making sure that we screen a range of films depicting women from different backgrounds and realities has been a high priority for us in programming, and we will work hard to stand by that commitment to diversity, while balancing our budget and the integrity of the program.