There were no Australian winners at the recent Academy Awards, but it could be a different story next year.

And that “story” could be a quirky one about ‘a robber, rocker and family connection, all tied together with the love of crochet’. It's the basis of a short film being produced by the 2025 Kellyville High School media team.

Once completed, and thanks to their win at the recent Flickerfest International Short Film Festival, the team will submit the film for consideration at the Academy Awards and the British Academy Film and Television Awards (BAFTAs).

Flickerfest was held at Bondi Beach in January and Kellyville High Head Teacher Science and media team coordinator, Fabio Caparelli, said the festival doubled as a qualifying event for the Oscars and BAFTAs.

“This means the current film we’re working on, we’re going to be entering it (for the Oscars and BAFTAs),” he said.

The potential Oscar winner, ‘Slip Stitch*’, derives its title from the crochet term of the same name.

Year 12 student, Kya Murray, and Year 10 student, Ruby Whelan, said it was “a unique kind of confusing film, but it all comes together in the end”.

The Kellyville media team’s winning entry at Flickerfest, ‘Bubblegum and Bunyips’, was described as a ‘moving story of a middle-aged Indigenous Australian woman reflecting on her youth during the Stolen Generation.

The ‘Bubblegum’ in the title relates to the popping sound of bubble gum, which reminds the woman of her childhood, while the ‘Bunyip’ emerges in a pivotal scene when the woman and her friends mistake the splashing sounds of welfare officers approaching for the mythical bunyip.

Several years ago, the media team made a film for Castle Hill Police to complement a program run in schools tackling domestic violence and coercive control.

Entitled ‘Love Bites’, the film and program attracted the interest of a BBC journalist who interviewed the students and police involved for a major story on domestic violence in Australia.External link

Kya and Ruby said being involved with the media team required “determination and lots and lots of hours of after school and lunchtime work”.

“If we’re not determined, we don’t put the work in. It’s extracurricular. It’s not a subject. Nothing we do in the media team goes towards anything,” Kya said.

However, she said the experience she gained from the media team would be invaluable in realising her career ambition to become a film maker.

“I do multimedia and visual arts, which are subjects that are going to help me in my career, but this is pushing that way further because I am getting professional on set experience,” Kaya said.

“I’m getting professional camera experience. We’re all getting to work with experienced actors.

“You don’t get that in a subject like maths. So, this is just skyrocketing our experience.”

Mr Caparelli said media team members gained skills that were useful across multiple subjects.

“I don’t think they realise some of the things they get out of it,” Mr Caparelli said.

“When they’re sitting in front of a computer and looking to speed something up or to slow it down and there’s a graph, those are numeracy skills. When you’re scriptwriting, there’s a lot of literacy skills.

“One of the things that we’ve all learned is there’s no room for hurt feelings - we tell it as it is. It is a good healthy robust working environment when we’re on set.

“We got an email from a woman last week who put together a Netflix series and saw Love Bites. She now wants some of the students to work with her.”

The Kellyville High media team is also gaining a stellar reputation among actors.

Mr Caparelli said the new film featured actors who had worked on Netflix, Paramount, and Prime Video productions.

“When I am advertising for actors, I have to put links to our films, so they don’t think it’s a school project,” he said.

“And all of our actors are surprised when they see our films.”

Ruby said the team’s scripts mainly came from true stories, which made them appealing to professional actors.

“We base them on actual real-life experiences. When we tell actors, they actually want to get involved, even if it is just a small little part. They like the story. They love the script,” she said.

*A slip stich is a type of stitch in which the stitches are moved from one needle to the other without being knitted.