This is my second year in Broken Hill with Big Screen, but definitely not my second time in the Silver City. I started coming out here in the late 80s. It became my ‘escape’ town in a way, the furthest place I could get to; a place with a unique identity and spectacular landscape. It’s definitely one of my tour favourites. I feel like a bad parent saying that. I do genuinely love every town we go to, and I shouldn’t really have any favourites but…you know, towns like Broken Hill – so remote, dealing with more than most – just have a special energy about them.

It’s in these places you meet the most remarkable people too. People who just go 10 steps further, push harder, no questions asked because they love their town. John Wren at the Silver City Cinema, a true ‘picture show man’, could’ve packed it all in, saved himself the trouble and heartache of keeping a single-screen cinema going. But no, there he is every day showin’ the movies. James Giddey, the Regional Arts Development Officer at West Darling Arts – here’s a guy who works in an area that stretches from Wentworth in the south to Tibooburra in the north, and east to Ivanhoe, helping towns, mostly small, keep a sense of place alive through arts and culture. Take a look at the map. James’ run stretches from the southern-most to the northern- most tip of New South Wales, in some of the hardest country with some of the hardest people…arts and culture folk! And then there are those who are simply a part of the fabric of the town and who care enough to go that extra yard: Andrew, the local ABC manager; Marg, the owner of the local Barrier Miner newspaper; Wayne from Charlotte’s Cafe. The list goes on, but it’s these people who make Big Screen work; it’s their input, their ideas, their energy which pushes Big Screen into a shape that fits a town like Broken Hill. And this year we broke out in bigger and better ways.

Silver City Cinema hosted the schools screenings once again. The students poured in from as far away as Wilcannia and Menindee for No Worries, Hating Alison Ashley and our AFTRS short films. Saturday morning saw 70 kids with their parents come in for Dot and the Kangaroo, which was fantastic given Ice Age 2 had just opened.

We screened again outdoors in the beautiful Sturt Park with Picnic at Hanging Rock. It was freezing cold, unlike the balmy opening night last year, but still we had 70 or so ‘true believers’ of all ages braving the chill.

We moved into Theatre 44 (managed and voluntarily run by the local theatre group), and set up a ‘digital cinema’ to screen Oyster Farmer and Little Fish. We had a fantastic matinee audience of around 60 again.

But the best night of all was in the beer garden at the Silverton pub, where we screened Mad Max II. We put on a community bus and had a sausage sizzle (as a fundraiser for the local firies), and 160 people turned out – mums and dads with their kids, aunties and uncles, grandparents, and the odd international tourist. It was a fantastic night. Mad Max II was shot around Silverton. It is a part of the local folklore, and many of the locals either had small parts in it or have woven the film into the fabric of their lives. We even had a peanut gallery up the back – a bunch of thirtysomething blokes, all locals, who knew the film word for word and shared their ‘skill’ to the delight of the whole audience. At the end of the night everyone was grinning from ear to ear. They hadn’t had so much fun in years. Now Big Screen has a new venue – the beer garden at the Silverton pub – which is very fitting, as so many films and commercials have been shot around the town and in that very pub.

Next stop Tibooburra, for the start of our Easter desert run.