An Interview With The Brains Behind We're All Going To Die Festival

Words by Connor Benfield.

We’re All Going to Die - a depressing inevitability or a liberating awakening? For prolifically creative Sydney artist and filmmaker, Stefan Hunt, it was the latter - and he’s positive that it should be the same for you!

We’re All Going To Die Festival is Hunt’s latest brainchild. The festival will gather together a diverse collection of artists, surfers, filmmakers, dancers, speakers, creators… (like I said, it’s diverse), including Ozzie Wright, Tom Tilley, Georgia Hill and Otis Carey, as well as some
forward thinking and innovative organisations like Indigo Project and Groove Therapy x Retrosweat. And it’s all in the name of opening up a conversation about fear and death, and how talking about these things can grant us the freedom to do whatever the hell we want!

I gave Stefan a very stern grilling about the festival. Here’s what he had to say:

Stef, at a glance, this sounds weird. But when you dig a little deeper, there’s actually a huge amount of philosophical credence to what you’re saying. How’d you come up with the idea for WAGTD?

The concept evolved off the back of my own experience with anxiety. Two years ago, I was so afraid of the unknown that I couldn’t make a simple life decision. My life spiralled. Then I wrote this poem called ‘We’re All Going to Die’, and it shifted my perspective on everything. The small stuff I’d been sweating didn’t matter as much. I spoke to mates about this poem I’d written and they were frothing. I think collectively we we’re all numb to cliches like “life’s short” or “YOLO”, so to talk about something real, like how we wanted to live our lives before our inevitable death, that was weirdly exciting. That’s how WAGTD came about I guess.

I don’t think many people would say that starting your own festival is the next logical step, but it is a bloody good step all the same. What do you hope people will get out of WAGTD?

I’m creating this festival because I want us all to come together and kick fear in the nuts! Every day we’re so crippled by the fear of judgement or failure or the unknown and it sucks. Getting this festival off the ground has been a massive undertaking, and there hasn’t been a
single day where I haven’t been afraid of failure. But if I’d given up, fear would’ve won. I want WAGTD to empower us all to fear less and live more, because we’re all going to die anyway, right? And I plan on doing that with everything I love - film, music, art, panel discussion,
experiences, the list goes on.

Right! So what happens next? Are you going to take this show on the road?

SH: Hell yeah! For starters, we crowdfunded this thing into existence. Over $30,000 in three weeks was donated by friends, family and bloody legend strangers, which tells me that this is an idea that the people really dig. We’ll get the debut edition out of the way first, but I want to take this idea everywhere. I know that this concept transcends language and borders, so why not take it to the rest of the world?

The We're All Going To Die Festival will take place on the 17th of November at COMMUNE in Waterloo, Sydney. It’s a one night only show from 6-10pm. Tickets are on sale now through Eventbrite. Click the poster below to go to the website and get more info.

Follow We're All Going To Die Festival: FACEBOOK