Screen Presence 2026 Opens with No-Budget Filmmaking
A full room, many new faces, and conversations that kept going long after the panel ended.
Screen Presence opened 2026 last Thursday with the first session in our From Idea to Screen series — How to Make a Short Film with (Almost) No Budget.
Filmmakers at every stage joined us — including many who hadn’t made a film before — to watch short films, ask practical questions and meet future collaborators.
The budgets discussed ranged from $30 to a few hundred dollars, proving that starting is often more possible than it feels.
Thank you to our generous panellists Justin Villar, Taysha McFarland, Troy Kwon and Mark Day for sharing their work and their honesty about how they began. The conversations didn’t end when the event did.
The series continues on March 19 with Crowdfunding with Ravi Chand — looking at how projects move from an idea into real financing.
This event would not be possible without the support of Melbourne Chinatown Business Association and our wonderful volunteers: Laura Him, Laurie Fletcher, Ababil Ashari Winarizal, Wilari Tedjosiswoyo. Thank you.
