Manifest Short Film Showcase

Young Adult Tent, South Queensland Conference camp meeting, September 21.

In a first for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in southern Queensland, the young adult tent at its camp meeting hosted a short film showcase this year.

Nathan Dalton’s Faith: Loss featured as part of the Manifest Short Film Showcase at this year’s South Queensland Conference camp meeting.

Presented by Manifest, the showcase featured 13 award-winning local and international films by Christian filmmakers, including one from the creative arts festival’s assistant convenor Nathan Dalton and several from the church in North America’s SONscreen Film Festival. The finale: a screening of The Butterfly Circus, a poignant story of value and hope starring Nic Vujicic of Life Without Limbs fame.

While each film is unique in theme and execution, the content is consistently inspiring—viewing shorts gives you a strong sense the filmmakers embrace the limited time to excel in the art of blending technical skill and powerful stories. But the appeal of this showcase went beyond clever storytelling to challenge our views and interaction with the world and, more significantly, how our Christian faith impacts our daily existence. And films such as Nathan’s Hope Channel Prize winning Faith: Loss open us to such reflection.

What is promising about an event of this kind is its potential to connect a gathering of young adults to positive messages through the powerful medium of film—and it’s the young adults peers who are creating the films. The potential of the showcase may go even further: where one inspired audience member quietly decides to try their hand at storytelling, sharing their faith and hope through faithful creativity. And that’s what the community of Manifest is about.

Georgina Hobson
Assistant convenor
Manifest Creative Arts Festival
Dakabin, Queensland, Australia.