No matter which way you look at it, the statistics around poker machines are devastating. Every day, money is wasted, homes are gambled away, families are broken and lives are lost.
The suicide of a mate in 2001 prompted local filmmaker David Lowe to write about the subject and when the opportunity came up to put an anti-pokies message on the big and small screen, Welcome To The Machine was made.
The film, which is part of the Go Viral! initiative by Screenworks in partnership with Create NSW, was open to short microfilm proposals of a five minutes maximum duration with a focus on current social issues. Welcome To The Machine by David Lowe and Cloudcatcher Media partner Eve Jeffery, was launched last night at a live screening in Byron Bay and online on Facebook, Vimeo and YouTube.
The films stars local singer and actress Melia Naughton who plays Clara, a woman who meets a machine who makes her feel like a winner. But with this machine, winning is impossible.
The Machine is played by well-known voice actor Lofty Fulton of Masterchef fame.
Lofty and Melia performed their parts of the film at different locations at different times and only met each other for the first time at the Byron screening.
After a Welcome to Country by Delta Kay, the film was screened live at the Byron Bay Community Centre then launched online. The cast and crew celebrated with a dinner with wonderful views at the Green Room within the Beach Hotel, a space that once was, but no longer is, a blacked-out windowed pokie den.
Now that Welcome To The Machine is online, Jeffery and Lowe are hoping the film will be shared on social media platforms with a push toward going viral over the next few weeks.
