![The Big Wait: Forrest, Australia—Population Two [Documentary Short]](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/8l40MZxpilmbEIS211JcESGYAqV.jpg "The Big Wait: Forrest, Australia—Population Two [Documentary Short]")
A remote Australian town with two residents, six empty cottages, and a runway waiting for planes that rarely come—The Big Wait is a quiet ode to hope, hospitality, and life off the grid.
Welcome to Forrest—population two. Three, if you count Holly, the dog. Hidden deep in the belly of Australia’s unforgiving Nullarbor Plain, Forrest isn’t your typical outback town. There’s one road, six empty cottages, an emergency airstrip, and a pair of quiet caretakers who keep the lights on in case someone—anyone—needs to land.
In The Big Wait, director Yannick Jamey takes us straight into this surreal postcard of isolation. It’s not just a portrait of place—it’s a meditation on presence, patience, and what it means to prepare for visitors who may never arrive.
Where Hope Lives (and Waits)
Kate and Greg are the hearts of Forrest. They maintain the cottages like a stage crew, resetting the set after every scene. Fresh bedspreads. Sparkling glassware. Lawn trimmed just so. As Kate puts it, they want guests—should they arrive—to think, “Gosh, wow!” But most days, there’s no one to say it. Just the wind, the cello, and maybe a wayward kangaroo.
Watching The Big Wait feels like pressing pause on the rest of the world. Forrest may only have two people, but it holds a full spectrum of humanity: care, humor, purpose, longing, and hope. Especially hope. As Greg quotes, “Man can live a week without water, a month without food, and about ten seconds without hope.” Forrest, it turns out, is where hope hangs its hat and waits.
Just in case.
