Tasmania’s only major film festival hopes a season change will add a breath of fresh air to its line-up.
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The Tasmanian Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival traditionally has been held in spring at Inveresk.
The festival, which is in its eighth year, will change to autumn and will take place between May 17 and 20.
Festival director Owen Tilbury said the changes would be advantageous, especially as it was unable to run last year.
“BOFA is an indoors event, so really ideally suited to an autumn date, when there are less competing events, and Tasmania needs to attract more visitors,” Tilbury said.
The festival will also relocate to the Village Cinema complex in Brisbane Street.
“After seven successful years at Inveresk, we feel that the festival has come of age and the move to the city’s major cinema complex will ensure its future viability,” he said.
“Every year we have found it increasingly difficult to access the best festival films from around the world, because many are only offered to us in digital cinema projection format, which has not been available to us at Inveresk.”
The move would offer “a new world of choice” and high quality projection in the theatre, he said.
The 2018 program, which will be released on March 20, will include 30 features and documentaries from 12 different countries.
Swedish director Ruben Ostland’s The Square will feature in the festival.
It won the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
The BOFA 2018 event would run purely as a film festival, Tilbury said.
The Innovative Tasmania Action Sessions and Awards will be run as a separate event.
The festival has screened more than 500 feature and short films since it started.
Tasmania was the only state that did not have a major annual film festival until BOFA emerged.
Previously, BOFA raised the possibility of working with Mona Foma, the University of Tasmania and the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival.
The festival is supported by the City of Launceston.