Australia's Mushroom Pictures is working with Stavros Kazantzidis and Allanah Zitserman's production company Screen Artists on Horseplay, a darkly comic tale about a madcap plan to rig Australia's most famous annual horse race, the Melbourne Cup.

Casting on the project, which Kazantzidis will direct, is underway. The feature will be the fifth from Sydney-based Kazantzidis as either writer or director in as many years. He recently directed, and co-wrote with Zitserman, Russian Doll, one of few projects to have successfully secured investment from the Australian Film Finance Corporation (FFC) after it had finished shooting. The film, about a private investigator asked to marry the mistress of his best friend, stars Hugo Weaving and David Wenham.

Kazantzidis co-wrote Emma-Kate Croghan's Love And Other Catastrophes. He also wrote and directed True Love And Chaos and co-produced and co-wrote Strange Planet, also directed by Croghan.