2nd place getter Ghafouri Productions – a slick look at how artists are used as pawns in the gentrification game. Read this if you want to know more about this game within the game within the game of life.

Ingrid Brooker from Agastopia was the winner of the $3000 first prize! The second I Want to Live Here film competition was pleased to award Ingrid the prize after her cutting edge piece on how artists create the scene but yet speculators wipe it clean.

What she also mentioned was that a Land Tax system can usher those speculators out of their pariah mindset (and into productive work). This system forces vacant and under-utilised land out into the market, pushing down land prices and allowing creative nodes to open up around the city.

Check the photostream of the night.

We thank our judges, sponsors and participants for their assistance in the successful event.

Wed Dec 2nd, 6.30 – 8.15pm
The Order of Melbourne , Level 2, 401 Swanston St

An exciting evening of short films is set to enlighten us all on why communities are undermined by economics.

Join us for a selection of rousing new films from  Byron Bay to Brooklyn. Film makers had to look at the role artists play in gentrification cycles. Are artists pawns? What can be done about it? How are communities fighting back?

The first prize wins $3000! Your involvement is key in the People’s Choice Awards. Everybody screeeam!!

The night will also feature a Craft Cartel market, fresh with handmade goods to prompt your merry season shopping list.

Some comedic enlightenment by Aussie Jules will get the crowd going.

Proudly sponsored by Prosper Australia, Crumpler and Madman

RSVP for this fun, free event

Melbourne’s Wellington Street Collingwood typifies the aesthetic disaster of inner city gentrification cycles. While artists reinvigorate abandoned buildings with street art creating vibrant and unusual urban environments the result too regularly ends in bland town houses when property owners want to cash in on the rise in prices of a suburb.

The War on Creativity seeks to challenge the cycle and see examples of creative counter culture survive. Is your suburb under threat from homogenous housing? Why should property speculators be the only ones to gain? We would love to hear your stories, frustrations and solutions, check out the website for more details on the film comp or in the meantime send us examples of gentrification in your neighbourhood to put on our blog.

Send images, blogs, stories or queries about the film comp to films@earthsharing.org.au

The war on creativity asks young artists to respond to the effects of gentrification in their cities and neighbourhoods. Gentrification is a demographic shift in an urban area which sees affluent middle class people move into an area creating higher demand for housing and leading to an increase in property prices.

This has the adverse effect of pricing out current and long term residents who generally don’t have the capital to adapt to higher rents. Melbourne has seen many of its inner suburbs like North Fitzroy, Collingwood, Carlton and Northcote rise in popularity and price; making it difficult for students and artists to afford housing.

The irony of gentrification is that it cuts out the people who contributed to the rise in popularity of a suburb. It is widely acknowledged that artists, bohemians, or ‘hipsters’  have attributed to the allure of traditionally down market inner urban areas, transforming former slums into sub-cultural paradises of hip cafes, artist run spaces, music venues and retro shops.

Yet instead of getting credit for creating dynamic artistic communities; livelihoods are threatened as artists scramble to find extra cash for higher rents, forcing many to move out.  This is a global phenomenon which affects creative communities everywhere, so if you’re in a place like Hackney (London), Wicker Park (Chicago) or Zizkov (Prague) then we want to hear your stories.

It’s time artists take back what they created. Make a 3 minute film addressing these issues and providing a solution so that in time artists get credit for the community they created instead of getting priced out!!

Read our guidelines for more background and a focus on what the judges are looking for
See wiki for further details and examples on gentrification
Download the e-flyer

Stay posted!

South Park on the Good For Corporates GFC

Share householding leads us to some interesting scenarios. Anyone for tea? Third place getter Christian Dorian’s entry for the I Want to Live Here festival. Well Done!

2nd placegetters Chrissy and Carol have just the thing for you.

I Wanna Live Here – Anna Brownfield

Director Anna Brownfield is the winner of the inaugural I Want to Live Here film competition. There was standing room only at last night’s vibrant gig. We were stoked with the quality of the films sent in – well done ye story tellers! Different film makers had their teams of supporters cheerleading the vibe up nicely as we watched and waited for the big announcement.

The I Wanna Live Here film was given first place over the highly rated ‘Shocking Stuart’ and tempting ‘Tea Time’. The award was based on the ability of film makers to portray the issues of affordability, land hoarding and finding somewhere to live, with an entertaining, original perspective. We will be uploading more films and photos from the competition over the next few days.

Thanks to the Melbourne Craft Cartel for their excellent creative wares, the film makers, our volunteer team and all those who attended. Also a shout out to comedian Courtney Hocking for stepping into the breach at the last minute.

If you want to support Earthsharing, please join our e-list (button top right of screen) or email for a free trial subscription to our Progress Magazine (cane based paper/ veggie inks so we can start unraveling the layers to the reasons behind our generation’s paying twice the rent that past generations enjoyed.

We hope you start planning your 2009 film on affordability and land speculation over a round of drinks today.

The build up to tomorrow night’s exciting I Want to Live Here film competition SCREENING event sees some major press. Check the back page of the Age for the story ‘No Place Like Home’:

Fahey, who is founder of Radical Cross Stitch, wanted to challenge the idea of restricting access with the craft of cross stitch. “I think it’s morally abhorrent that we can have homelessness and we can have all this vacant land lying around,” she says. “We need a holding charge on land so that people can’t just buy it, then sit on it and speculate on its rising value.”

How will the Federal Government deal with homelessness? Build more homeless shelters it seems! Where do they go next? Little for public housing, just more handouts for the property lobby with the first home owners grant. Tax reform is needed as Fahey so eloquently puts it above. Read this for more info on why.

Make sure you bring a jump stick/ message stick so you can copy and take home the movies.