Winner The People’s Choice Award, The Spirit of Woodford Film Festival, 2010.

The Promised Land

When utopia starts to fade, dystopia is exposed

The Promised Land explores the quasi-religious aspects of contemporary mass gatherings through ‘a year in the life’ of the biggest folk festival in the southern hemisphere: Woodford Folk Festival.

The festival has reached cult status. What Glastonbury is to England, Woodford folk festival aka Woodfordia is to Australia.

The Promised Land explores how the folk festival situated in the hinterlands of Queensland’s subtropical coast is a microcosm of a world some people would prefer to live in – all the time.

Mass gatherings, such as festivals, music concerts and sports events, are forms of social bonding and can become a platform for social, cultural and ideological change. In our fragmented western society, people are finding communal identity, social sustenance and commonality in these pursuits.

But how long can it last? What is the flip-side when the ‘real world’ kicks back in and the litter is trampled and fossilised into the drying mud?

Written and Directed by Grania Kelly
Edited by Robert Sneddon
Co-Produced by StarSapphire Productions and Robert Sneddon