Goran Stolevski’s Australian drama Of An Age has won the CinefestOZ Film Prize of nearly $70,000 (AU$100,000).
The prize, awarded on Saturday (August 27) at the 15th CinefestOZ Film Festival in Western Australia, is open to new Australian-made films and considered one of the richest in the country.
Of An Age marks the second feature of Macedonia-born, Australia-based writer-director Stolevski and depicts a romance between two young men – played by Elias Anton and Thom Green – in the suburbs of Melbourne over one hot summer’s day in 1999.
It was acquired by Focus Features for the US following the April release of Stolevski’s first feature, You Won’t Be Alone, which premiered at Sundance and also screened at CinefestOZ. Of An Age is expected to receive a US release in the first quarter of 2023.
Australian actor and filmmaker Richard Roxburgh chaired the competition jury and said: “The director pushed formal boundaries, rooting their film in a very personal perspective, that balanced its specificity and crafted a world that made its story a universal one.”
Roxburgh, whose credits include Moulin Rouge! and more recently Elvis, was also named a CinefestOZ Screen Legend at the awards, for his outstanding contribution to the Australian film industry.
Causeway Films’ Kristina Ceyton, who produced Of An Age and You Won’t Be Alone with Samantha Jennings, told Screen she is now financing Stolevski’s next film, True-ish, a political satire set in New York, Berlin and the Balkans.
Stolevski will first finish Housekeeping for Beginners, set in Macedonia and about a queer woman reluctantly raising the children of her dead partner. Causeway is not involved.
Expansion plans
CinefestOZ, which solely programmes Australian films, hosted 270 screenings and events in 35 venues from August 23-28. It also staged a two-day industry event with 240 delegates, a schools programme and community events. Attendance across all these events totalled 26,410, which was 1,800 up on last year.
The festival is in expansion mode. In November, an three-day edition will be held in Broome (in the north of Western Australia) that aims to become the leading indigenous-focused film festival in the country.
This year’s CinefestOZ was also used by the government to launch guidelines for the Western Australian Production Attraction Incentive, an election promise made 17 months ago and worth nearly $14m (AU$20m) over four years.
High-profile market-driven footloose interstate and international productions spending at least $2.4m (AU$3.5m) locally are eligible and at least 10% of local spend is offered. This money can be combined with up to five other state and federal financial incentives, including the $11m (AU$16m) WA Regional Screen Fund – also over four years – which can provide up to $1.4m (AU$2m) per project.
“Our strategic plan is to quadruple production activity in the state in the next three to five years and this will go a long way in helping us to do that,” Screenwest CEO Rikki Lea Bestall told Screen. The state agency is administering the fund.
“What we have that other states do not is untapped locations from red dirt deserts to salt lakes to the bluest of blue oceans,” she added.
Three of the five Australian projects set to screen at Toronto – Blueback, Sweet As and Mystery Road: Origin – were filmed in Western Australia.
The State Government also committed $72.8m (AU$105m) to building a world-class studio during the election campaign.
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