The Sun is the world's oldest continually operating outdoor cinema and remains virtually unchanged since its construction. The great pearling history of the town is seen on every street; combined with the rugged beauty of the Kimberleys, the Sun is the heartbeat of the town. Any visitor to Broome always makes a visit to The Sun and Big Screen offers something particularly unique to the many international visitors who pass through this town during the season.

Broome is one of Big Screen's original locations, we've been touring here for five years and in that time I've had the pleasure of hosting industry guests the caliber of Chris Haywood, Steve Bisley and Michael Caton.

With this year's program, many travelers would have had a 'baptism by fire' with our opening night films The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Yellow Fella. Both are 'hard' films reflecting aspects Australia's Indigenous history and culture which are, perhaps, largely unknown outside this country.

Both works are powerful and had an obvious effect on the audience. It's always interesting to try and gauge the reactions of audiences from town to town. In Broome it was obvious the audience was gripped by these two very different films, from the outset. As in Darwin, our guest for Broome was the star ofThe Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Yellow Fella, Tom Lewis, who proved more than up to the Big Screen challenge and grabbed the issues raised in both films with both hands. Tom's passion and commitment to both the art form and to social justice issues is nothing short of inspiring, and school and general audiences at the screening simply couldn't get enough of the post film Q&A sessions.

For me, Broome is one of the jewels in the crown of the WA and NT legs of Big Screen and its residents continue to show enormous interest in the program. This year I tried a couple of different things with the event which I don't mind saying had some mixed success. Big Screen staples like the Gems program of archival films and the school screenings continued to provide a high level of community interest. With the Gems, I advise the audience to forget about the four walls of the cinema and look at the films as they would their home movies. People just love talking about the films, and so when the rules are abandoned, they go for it, and chatter bubbles to and fro all the way through the screening. This is one of the great satisfying parts of the event overall, as the barriers break down and people connect very directly with the films - and for the older members of the audience there is often quite a deep connection.

However, seeing a film the caliber of Jimmie Blacksmith living once more on the big screen, makes this event so special both for me and the audience. When we have no chance to revisit classics like this on the big screen we can forget how great these films actually are. Despite the fact that the style of film making has changed, and the pacing is quite different to what we see today, I always find that contemporary viewers really do value the opportunity to revisit such great moments in Australian film.

This year Big Screen also presented three very contemporary films, Three Dollars, The Oyster Farmer and Peaches, which all attracted excellent houses over three nights.

So ... as the sun sinks slowly in the West, we bid a fond farewell to Broome and on to the Wheatbelt.

Richard Sowada