No Thing

05/02/2023

Excited for Freedom Swimmer to be one of the 12 films selected for the incredible Stellar Short Film Festival in Frankston. It is such a beautiful festival, the programmers go above and beyond and there is so many fantastic Australian short films playing this year!!!!!! So honoured.

30/11/2022

IndieWire, ShortsTV, and National Geographic Documentary Films are teaming up for a short film showcase as part of LA3C on December 9. Here are the filmmakers showcased in the lineup.

26/11/2022

For your consideration ;) Freedom Swimmer. Currently being considered for the BAFTA in Animation and the OSCAR in Documentary. Congratulations to all the team. What a journey. Olivia Martin-McGuire Sacrebleu Productions Brooke Tia Silcox

23/11/2022

A special win for Freedom Swimmer at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival - Best Documentary Short. It's always special to know that your work is touching the next generation. Congrats all!

23/11/2022

Congrats to the Freedom Swimmer team for the nominations with the WA Screen Culture Awards.

Australian Film, Culture, and Humanities

23/11/2022

Teachers! Judas Collar is now available as a teachers resource through ATOM - check it out:
https://theeducationshop.com.au/search.php?search_query=%22judas+collar%22

21/08/2022

MANHATTAN SHORT has announced the Final Ten selections for its 25th Annual Short Film Festival, a worldwide event taking place in over 400 venues across six continents between September 22 and October 2, 2022. MANHATTAN SHORT is the only event of its kind. The Final Ten screen simultaneously across the world during a one-week period, with the Best Film and Best Actor awards determined by ballots cast by the audience in each participating venue. By virtue of their selection by MANHATTAN SHORT, each short film is automatically Oscar-qualified.
The MANHATTAN SHORT Final Ten are:
Don vs Lightning (Scotland), Love, Dad (Chechia & Slovakia), Save the Bees (USA), The Treatment (Spain), Freefall (France), Fe**sh (USA), Freedom Swimmer (Australia), The Blanket (Finland), Warsha (Lebanon), The Big Green (France)!!
The festival has said "these final ten films represent the best short films from among 868 submissions from 70 countries received by MANHATTAN SHORT for 2022, testimony to the enduring vibrancy and creativity of short films worldwide."
Congrats to the team, thanks Sacrebleu Productions and Sacrebleu Prod for the connection, Founding Director - Nick Mason (another Aussie) for his enthusiasm and support - really looking forward to being involved! Olivia Martin-McGuire No Thing

The Trailer for the 25TH Annual MANHATTAN SHORT Film Festival. Screening across the World Sept 22 - Oct 2, 2022. You Be the Judge!

19/05/2022

Freedom Swimmer at Carmarthen Bay Film Festival in Wales!

19/05/2022

Was an honour to screen at Flatpack Film Festival in Birmingham this week! .productions

18/05/2022

12/05/2022

Heading to Poland! .productions

27/04/2022

Freedom Swimmer to screen at for its WA Premiere. An honour to be selected! Huge congrats to the whole team. It’s always special to play in front of a home crowd. Interested to hear the comments on the other side of the screening on Friday.

11/04/2022

Freedom Swimmer was Awarded Best Animation at the Academy Accredited Aspen Shorts Fest (giving the film its second Oscar’s nod) and the Ellen Jury Award from a jury formed in honour of the founder of the festival for the film that best represents the spirit of the festival. Congrats 👏 to .productions and the whole team, the storytellers and for the incredible honour!!! 🏆 🏆 🎉 👏 so excited for everyone!

11/04/2022

Freedom Swimmer won the Film Jury Award at Athen’s International Film & Video Festival in Ohio. It’s an award named by Ed Lachman for visionary filmmaking. Congrats .productions and all the other crew, cast and story tellers for your vision!!!!

09/03/2022

Huge News! Freedom Swimmer just won Best Short Documentary at the Australian International Documentary Conference!!! Thanks thanks .productions for their support for directing the project and bringing such an important story to life and for the beautiful animation and all the other cast and crew for your extremely talented work! It’s not just us who think you are very excellent!! 🏆 🏆 🏆 ✨ 🏊‍♀️ 🙏

18/02/2022

Congrats to the Freedom Swimmer team on the nomination for Best Documentary Short Form at AIDC!! Huge News!!!

Today, the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) reveals the nominees for the second annual AIDC Awards, and is proud to announce journalist David Tiley as the winner of the $5,000 Stanley Hawes Award for 2022. The 2022 AIDC Awards Ceremony will be held in-person, at ACMI, Melbourne...

05/02/2022

29/01/2022

Freedom Swimmer was included in Redefine Magazine's "Supreme Short Films" ;) of Slamdance!!, it's an honour to be considered alongside some of the other amazing films at the festival.

Slamdance 2022 returns virtually for yet another year in 2022, with access to over 100 films for only $10! Streaming from January 27 to February 6, the

22/01/2022

Freedom Swimmer screening this Sunday in Bondi.

19/01/2022

Freedom Swimmer has been selected for Flickerfest! It’s the 31st International Short Film Festival, 21-30 January, Bondi Beach, Sydney. Director, Olivia Martin-McGuire will be there representing. We are so honoured to be part of the competition for international documentary short. It’s an opportunity for BAFTA and Academy Accreditation. .productions thanks to for the vid !

08/01/2022

Slamdance is virtual only this year (thanks Omicron…) but that means we can all join in, it’s $10 for 100+ films. Screening Jan 27- Feb 6. We are still feeling really honoured to have selected as part of the documentary shorts program. Also feeling like Western Australia is representing as other locals Cody Greenwood and Chris Veerhuis have their films in the mix too! We’re really keen to check out some of the other films and are already feeling the warmth from the Slamdance filmmaker community we are now a part of! .productions

09/12/2021

Freedom Swimmer has been selected to screen at Slamdance Film Festival. One of eleven short documentaries!

The Slamdance Film Festival is a showcase for raw and innovative filmmaking that lives and bleeds by its mantra: By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers.

06/12/2021

Thanks to ARTE for this snippet about Freedom Swimmer as part of their Short Circuit showcase. For French speakers ;)

16/11/2021

Thanks to The Curb and the incredible support of the generous and considerate Andrew F Peirce for this article.

"This a powerful film that highlights how history lives within us all, often within the scarring nature of intergenerational trauma."

Australian Film, Culture, and Humanities

15/11/2021

Freedom Swimmer won the Yoram Gross Award for Best Animation at Sydney Film Festival last night! Thanks so much to the incredible festival, the judging panel, the other awesome animations in our category, Sandra and Guy Gross for the award in memory of the late but extremely talented Yoram Gross and of course the incredible crew, storytellers and of course the inimitable Agnès Patron and her team for the animation as well as Ron Dyens at Sacrebleu Productions for believing in the film and it’s animation. The award means that the film is now Oscar Longlisted/ Academy Award eligible!!! Yoram Gross was Australia’s leading animation director and producer making such epics as the animated Blinky Bill, Dot and the Kangaroo and The Magic Riddle. Famously, he and his family were on Oskar Schindler’s list but chose to make their own risky escape from the N**i regime. “He’s known as a storyteller whose distinctive, non-violent films and series posses a contemporary charm that crosses international boundaries.” He said “if you watch my films carefully you’ll see the history of my life.” His stories expound messages of loyalty, peaceful resolve and good winning over evil.” It is an incredible honour 🙏 🏆 🥇 ✨ 🏊‍♂️ 🌊 .productions

21/10/2021

Freedom Swimmer has been selected to screen at DOCNYC in November! The stories of our elders are precious. We are grateful to have worked with those that wanted to share their story. They were hopeful that their stories would create greater understanding of larger cultural and political events. We are also thankful for the opportunity to share the film in New York at such a prestigious festival, it’s such an incredible opportunity. .productions

13/10/2021

Congratulations to the whole team on being selected as part of the Dendy Awards at Sydney Film Festival. In particular, Freedom Swimmer is nominated for best animation. We had the incredible fortune of working with the immensely talented as graphic author. The animation team hand drew and painted the historic story of a grandfather’s journey swimming to Hong Kong. The animation is his memory. The animation was completed over a six month period. Director, Olivia Martin-McGuire was so moved by Agnès work on her film ‘And The Bear’ and saw that her style would be perfect for “the light coming out of the darkness.” One of the things that was special about this project was the consideration of how we could make “the blacks” in the animation be “alive.” Agnes didn’t want a simple flat black and created a black with “life.” It wasn’t a simple task but with a talented digital colourist/ grade team the darkness is alive throughout the whole film - across the animation, present day footage and archive. We all look forward to sharing this story with you in Sydney in November!!! .productions