I N D E P E N D E N T F I L M M A K E R
Sharon Shostak was transplanted to the hills of the Byron Shire from Melbourne at nine years old, and credits the fertile surrounds with nurturing her creativity from that young age. She had devised and performed a puppet show with a friend by the age of 14 that toured local markets and made her first short drama on Super 8 film in 1984, after many years stalking the world with a stills camera.
Victorian film industry trained and with two degrees in film, her independent filmmaking gained wings in 2004 with a win of Best Film at the New York Short Film Festival for her 9 minute digital short The Deep Pool.
Since then she has worked mainly in documentary, education and music video clips. In 2011 Shostak wrote, directed and edited the independent documentary feature The Echo Doco – Born To Be Trouble, as well as her 2012 dramatic short feature Tish Ho, winner of The Triangle Award for Excellence In Originality from the Colombia Gorge International Film Festival, USA.
Her four year contract as the video journalist for the online paper Echonetdaily resulted in hundreds of short documentaries about events in the Byron Shire. Shostak also produced longer commissioned pieces for Lismore Regional Gallery, such as Not Quite Square - owner built houses in the Northern Rivers, and tutors primary school students in devising, creating and acting in their own digital short dramas.
Sharon's latest feature doco commissioned by Brunswick Valley Historical Society Mullumbimby's Madness - the Legacy of the Hippies screened to sold-out audiences, and has been acclaimed as "an incredible gift to the community to create such an entertaining, beautifully shot and edited piece" (Tony Guilding).
Her current project is a second film for BVHS. If the previous one was about how the Alternates found Mullumbimby and put down roots - how they built their homes, how they made money and their relationships - then this second in the series will be about what grew from that: The Arts, the Activism/Politics and the Health/Wellbeing, as recounted by the people who were there.
... more on these chapters as it unfolds.
Sprinkled with the usually zany characters and their amazing anecdotes, stay tuned for a rich and entertaining look into a shared history. Proudly commissioned by the BVHS on behalf of preserving the community's stories.
Victorian film industry trained and with two degrees in film, her independent filmmaking gained wings in 2004 with a win of Best Film at the New York Short Film Festival for her 9 minute digital short The Deep Pool.
Since then she has worked mainly in documentary, education and music video clips. In 2011 Shostak wrote, directed and edited the independent documentary feature The Echo Doco – Born To Be Trouble, as well as her 2012 dramatic short feature Tish Ho, winner of The Triangle Award for Excellence In Originality from the Colombia Gorge International Film Festival, USA.
Her four year contract as the video journalist for the online paper Echonetdaily resulted in hundreds of short documentaries about events in the Byron Shire. Shostak also produced longer commissioned pieces for Lismore Regional Gallery, such as Not Quite Square - owner built houses in the Northern Rivers, and tutors primary school students in devising, creating and acting in their own digital short dramas.
Sharon's latest feature doco commissioned by Brunswick Valley Historical Society Mullumbimby's Madness - the Legacy of the Hippies screened to sold-out audiences, and has been acclaimed as "an incredible gift to the community to create such an entertaining, beautifully shot and edited piece" (Tony Guilding).
Her current project is a second film for BVHS. If the previous one was about how the Alternates found Mullumbimby and put down roots - how they built their homes, how they made money and their relationships - then this second in the series will be about what grew from that: The Arts, the Activism/Politics and the Health/Wellbeing, as recounted by the people who were there.
... more on these chapters as it unfolds.
Sprinkled with the usually zany characters and their amazing anecdotes, stay tuned for a rich and entertaining look into a shared history. Proudly commissioned by the BVHS on behalf of preserving the community's stories.
