The Castlemaine Local and International Film Festival is bringing with it a touch of George Orwell, in the form of 1984 co-producer Al Clark.

Al Clark has worked behind the scenes on some of Australia's most iconic films - The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Chopper, The Hard Word and Thunderstruck.

But before he made his way to Australia or sat on the board of the Australian Film Commission, he was the co-producer of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the classic film translation of the George Orwell novel.

To celebrate 30 years since the release of the film, Al is coming to Castlemaine for a special screening as part of the Castlemaine Local and International Film Festival.

And despite the enduring reverence of the work and it's increasingly pertinent themes of surveillance and control, CLIFF organisers have so far been the only ones keen to mark the anniversary.

"There haven't been any 30th anniversary screenings that I'm aware of. It's the Priscilla 20th anniversary and we've had no end of anniversary screenings, there's even one in New York this week," Al says.

The reluctance to celebrate the anniversary may be due to the confronting nature of the film.

Widely regarded as a masterpiece, it is nonetheless a bleak look at how bureaucracy can stifle the things that make us human.

It may also hold a mirror to the elements of modern life that society would prefer to ignore.

Al says that a sense of apprehension already existed when the film was being made.

"It's turned out to be quite prophetic. The world has really turned into exactly the way he [George Orwell] dreaded it might be. The way that images are broadcast, the speed in which news travels and also the dreadful way in which every single moment attended by people with camera phones is invariably filmed or recorded.

"The one thing that seems to have gone completely is solitude, and I think that was one of the warnings the book sent out. Everything is for the record."

Throughout his career Al has worked on a number of films that resonate far beyond their cinema screening schedules or advertising campaigns.

The longevity that some projects enjoy is edifying considering the amount of effort that goes into their production; a producer may be the first person signed on to a project and is often the last to finish.

"If you make films, you have to want to do them a lot to want to do them at all. They take so long and they involve having to persuade so many people, I don't bother beginning the process until I'm very convinced I'm ready for the long haul. I have to be confident it will preoccupy me to the point of obsession at times."

While he's happy to toil outside the limelight, Al enjoys the opportunity to interface with movie buffs like those who attend events like CLIFF.

"I feel gratitude towards the audience. I've enjoyed all my life helping to build things that people want. You never know how many people, or in what way they're going to respond, but if it affects them in some way you've done exactly what you set out to do."