The festival will return in 2020, but has revised its season dates due the bushfires that have ravaged the Shoalhaven and South Coast.

And this year's WIFF (there's something in the air and it isn't smoke) will back the Shoalhaven Mayoral Relief Fund for Bushfire Relief and Wildlife Rescue South Coast.

The festival is a community event in a bush setting that invites locals to open air screenings of off beat or classic films on a large screen with surround sound.

There are three screenings planned this summer, Friday, January 24, Saturday, February 8 and Saturday, February 22.

The first screening kicks off on January 24 with the surf-themed experimental feature Palm Beach, 1979 made by Albie Thoms, avant-garde filmmaker instrumental in developing independent Australian cinema, and starring a young Bryan Brown.

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Palm Beach is a reflection of the suburban sub-culture of Sydney's Northern Beaches area.

While surf occupies a special place in the Australian narrative, Thoms' experimental narrative undoes the myths of surf-dom.

A tale of surf, drugs and rock 'n' roll, it reveals 48 hours in the lives of a handful of young Australians, who find themselves together at the same Palm Beach party.

Different things that happen to them have dire and unexpected consequences.

Palm Beach is an at times parodic critique of beach-obsessed Australian society and the conventions of narrative cinema.

Also screening are a couple of shorts courtesy of Contemporary Art Media, Melbourne which provide a context for Palm Beach and the early Sydney experimental film scene, including:

'An Interview with Albie Thoms' by Kriszta Doczy made in 2012 and 'UBU - Sydney Underground Movies 1965-1970'.

Also premiering will be a mini-feature by Funknuckle filmmaker Michael Buckley, Last Summer (1.40) a primitive style of animation and immediate filmic response to our current bushfire crisis.

Details

Palm Beach, 1979, (88 mins). Date: Friday, January 24, 2020. Venue: 560 Woollamia Road, Woollamia. Time: Doors open 6.30pm / screening from 8.15pm / finish 10pm. BYO picnic and mozzie guard. Donation: $15.

To find out more about the event and to register your place at the screening go to: https://www.southcoasttickets.com.au/events/woollamia-international-film-festival-2020/

WIFF 2020 season dates and films

Friday, January 20, Palm Beach (1979). Saturday, February 8, The Cars That Ate Paris (1974). Saturday, February 22, The Castle (1997).

Organisers are hoping this year's event will be a means of supporting the Shoalhaven Mayoral Relief Fund for Bushfire Relief and Wildlife Rescue South Coast.