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An Australian short film celebrating the role of fathers in their daughters’ lives, has captured the hearts and minds of a global audience on the video sharing site, Vimeo.
The film, ‘A Father’s Love’, was produced to highlight the issues of teen pregnancy and domestic violence in the NSW town of Wagga Wagga. Written and produced by local business woman, Simone Dowding, the film was the recipient of this year’s people’s choice award at the WaggaFest Short Film Festival.
Simone Dowding says she was motivated to embark on the project by the potential loss of a vital women’s health facility in her local community, the Wagga Women’s Health Centre.
“Wagga has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in New South Wales and the highest reported rate of domestic violence in regional New South Wales. These are trends we simply have to reverse,” Ms Dowding said.
“‘A Father’s Love’ was always about increasing the understanding of women’s issues and raising much needed funding to help the Wagga Women’s Health Centre continue to provide its crucial services. What we never expected was that the film would gain so much interest across Australia and around the world. It goes to show the love shared between a father and daughter is a universally powerful message.”
The film follows high profile local fathers from the Wagga community, including a retired surgeon, a commandant from the defence force and a director of Wagga City Council, as they give their daughters poignant advice and valuable life lessons.
One of the original founders of the Wagga Women’s Health Centre new building project, Jan Roberts, said the centre is extremely grateful for the additional support the film has generated.
“It’s wonderful to have women in the community being proactive and taking the initiative to support one another,” said Ms Roberts. “Simone’s film is a beautiful representation of the strong family values the majority of this community treasures.”
“Unfortunately in real life not all women are lucky enough to have such wise and loving role models. This is why it is critical that the Wagga Women’s Health Centre can continue to provide services to those who need it the most.”
The Wagga Women’s Health Centre is a non-government organisation which has been operating for more than 30 years providing counselling, support, community education and social action services to the women and girls of Wagga.
A new building is needed to accommodate the operations of the Wagga Women’s Health Centre when its current rental funding is exhausted in 2016. The Centre cannot continue to provide its valuable services to the community without appropriate accommodation.
A fundraising project was launched in November last year to raise $800,000 for the new building and to date the community has raised more than $300,000 for the centre.
The film was awarded $2,500 prize money for winning the ‘Open’ and ‘People’s Choice’ categories at the WaggaFest gala night ceremony, which will be donated to the Wagga Women’s Health Centre.
For further information or to make a donation please visit www.waggawomen.org.au
The short film A Father’s Love can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/72039552