This year’s AFM has seen a flood of Australian genre films brought to market repped by blue chip UK sales agents, including Cornerstone’s psychological horror From Below, Architect’s Second World War horror Dogs Of War plus Bankside’s creature feature Croak and survival thriller Hot Mother.
So why are UK sellers looking 10,000 miles away for their fix, as opposed to closer to home?
“We’ve gravitated towards Aussie films because the territory represents a good cross-section of independent ‘needs’,” said Architect’s Max Pirkis, also selling Australian horror Stake Out and thriller Posthumous, “English-language films, screen agencies that champion genre, and a strong set of producers who’ve enjoyed that backing for some time and so have a ready pipeline of quality and highly developed projects… We don’t quite see the equivalent flow of genre films, and infrastructure to construct them, from other territories, including the UK.”
Blue Finch’s Mike Chapman, who has sold Australian titles including The Banished, You’ll Never Find Me and Monolith, agrees it’s this championing of genre cinema at national fund Screen Australia and by regional agencies, such as Screen Queensland and Screen New South Wales, that has elevated local filmmaking. “This is a reason why we are seeing many Australian genre packages here at this market, perhaps more so than other nationalities.”
“It’s an enviable ecosystem worth imitating,” added Pirkis. “Though we see steps in that direction in the UK, genre just hasn’t been an institutional focus and so inevitably there have been less genre films emerging without that support.”
For Bankside’s Stephen Kelliher, it’s also the originality of Australian filmmakers’ voices that cuts through. “Australia produces some highly distinctive storytellers, often approaching genre with a unique point of view which is critical to the commercial success of independent films in the current market.”
Notable Australian genre producers include Causeway Films, with credits including Talk To Me, Went Up The Hill and Bring Her Back, and Bronte Studios, the company behind Kiah Roache-Turner’s Beast Of War and sequel Dogs Of War, while Brouhaha Entertainment landed a Cannes premiere with Dangerous Animals , which sold globally for Mister Smith Entertainment.
Phil Hunt, founder of UK film financier Head Gear Films says that the global box office success of Head Gear and Screen Australia-backed Bankside title Talk To Me, which grossed $93m worldwide in 2023, has bolstered Australian funders and filmmakers’ interest in horror. “Australia really woke up to the fact that there was a lot of money to be made in horror.
Hunt is so keen on Australian genre, he opened a production banner based in Melbourne, Monster Pictures Studios, with thriller Seven Snipers its first production, sold by Capture.
He notes that with horror in particular, money goes far. “Horror has always been a genre that the market has appetite for,” noted Hunt. “It’s simply ‘easier’ to get made – minimal locations, minimal star power required. It’s about the unseen. Expensive visual effects are not essential, there’s audience tolerance for lower quality [and] it encourages creative low budget storytelling.”
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