Rising star filmmaker chosen for national event

The Illawarra’s Noam Young was part of a select group of 11 filmmakers from around Australia who were supported to attend a national event focused on filmmaking.

Noam was one of the selected participants for the 2026 edition of New Kids on the Block (NKOTB) group who attended the annual Regional to Global Screen Forum at Lennox Heads on September 9 and 10.

Screenworks, the national body for regional screen creatives and crew, hosted the forum and helped fund travel and tickets for the New Kids, including directors, writers, producers, cinematographers, editors and composers.

Screen Illawarra Nick Bolton says Noam’s selection is “a lovely little story of a local young filmmaker being recognised already”. 

Noam did a Diploma of Screen & Media at TAFE in 2025-26.

“It just shows how good the TAFE screen media courses are – it's constantly churning out really impressive young filmmakers and they're being noticed on the national stage," Nick said.

“So it's great.”

Scriptwriting workshop on Saturday

This Saturday, Screen Illawarra will host a scriptwriting session with Graham Thorburn from the South Coast Writers Centre.

“Graham is one of Australia's most respected directors and writers," Nick says. "He runs the feature film scriptwriting course at South Coast Writers Centre. And we're doing a four-hour workshop on scriptwriting with him. 

“To hear from Graham is a privilege; he’s so smart and giving with his time and it’s a good chance to meet other writers. 

“Writing can be a very solitary activity, so to be able to meet other writers and perhaps read each other's work and critique each other's work is a wonderful thing.”

Graham's In the Writers Room workshop will be held from 10-2pm on Saturday, September 26 at the University of Wollongong. Book via Humanitix.

There are more chances for creatives to hone their skills ahead.

“We've got all our usual array of educational events happening: we've got a voice-over course with Kellie Jones.”

That's scheduled for Saturday, November 7.

Short film fest – take 3

Almost 400 people attended a re-screening of the 2026 Creative Wollongong Short Film Festival, presented by the City of Wollongong in partnership with Screen Illawarra. The event was held at the Gala Twin Cinemas in Warrawong on September 5.

“We're going to do a re-screening of it a third time, but this time at Finding Fillmore’s in Kiama," Nick says.

“We’re going to start a monthly networking/short film screening night at Finding Fillmore’s to support filmmakers further south down the coast.”

The first event is scheduled for October 8 and will include the screening of six commissioned films from the Creative Wollongong Short Film Festival: Faye, Birdwatcher, MiMic, Firebird, Mama Bird, and Bin Day. 

There'll also be a Q&A and networking to build the film community in Kiama.

“I'll be going down and a few of the filmmakers will be going down," says Nick.

Wollongong's next networking drinks will be at Headlands Hotel on Tuesday, 20 October.

And finally, look out for piano players

A film crew will shoot part of the upcoming series of hit documentary The Piano in Wollongong “quite soon”, Nick says. 

The Piano is “that beautiful show on ABC where a piano is put in a public place” and people play it.