All articles by Sandy George – Page 29
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News
Indian production Victory drawn into test cricket controversy
There are conflicting reports on whether Victory, an Indian film shooting all this month in Australia, has been affected by a controversy that has greatly intensified in the last 24 hours around the current test cricket series being played between India and Australia. Producer Vivek Aggarwal said none of the ...
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News
Western Australian mining boom helps funding for thriller Crush
Few feature films are made in Western Australia but producer Deidre Kitcher said that profits from the area's mining boom lead to the thriller Crush going into production yesterday.She and co-directors John V Soto and Jeff Gerritsen convinced six investors to put up the $1.76m (A$2m) budget with the help ...
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Features
Botswana - Production Number One
It is fitting that when he started filming, Anthony Minghella did not know if The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency would end up as a feature or a TV film. After all, this is a director who made his international name as an Oscar winner for such sweeping cinematic epics ...
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News
Luhrmann's Australia helps double Oz production to $232m
On first glance, figures released today indicate that more money is being poured into Australian features, which are traditionally made for very low budgets, but the improvement is illusionary. The numbers in the Australian Film Commission's (AFC) annual production survey only look healthier than the previous year because they have ...
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News
Indigenous film-makers line up To Hell And Back, Samson and Delilah
Australia 's indigenous film-makers are telling their own stories with two features being prepared. Richard Frankland's road movie To Hell and Back finished its six-week shoot in Western Australia last week. Financed by Film Finance Corporation Australia and the local state agency ScreenWest, it has been dubbed the Australian version ...
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News
Australia's Abacus Fund backs Geena Davis project Accidents Happen
A film fund aimed at raising $26.4m (A$30m) for the production of Australian films has been formed, with the first beneficiary being Andrew Lancaster's debut film Accidents Happen, starring American actress Geena Davis (Thelma & Louise). Accidents Happen was one of five films which yesterday won investment from the ...
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News
Romulus, My Fathernamed best film byAustralian Film Insitute
Romulus, My Father last night won the Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for best film for producers Robert Connolly and John Maynard. 'Some people think awards are a bit frivolous but I think they are of real value,' said Connolly just hours before the award was announced in Melbourne. He ...
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News
Australian Film Institute achievement award goes to editor Bilcock
Editor Jill Bilcock received the Australian Film Institute (AFI)'s award recognising achievement on the world filmmaking stage. She thanked two people when she picked up the honours: producer Verity Lambert, who died of cancer in the UK in late November, and director Fred Schepisi. It was Schepisi who directed Bilcock's ...
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News
Certification opens for new Australian tax rebate
Film Finance Corporation Australia flings opens its doors tomorrow for applications from producers wanting to get an indication that their films will be certified Australianonce completed.The provision certificates they will get (if successful) will give producers the starting point to start using the new film financing system introduced this year ...
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News
Happy Feet's George Miller creates joint venture with Omnilab
A very significant deal was announced today that gives director George Miller access to significant finance and the digital technology and hardware, personnel, and management skills, enabling him to make more films of the scale of his most recent hit, Happy Feet.His company, Kennedy Miller Mitchell, has joined forces with ...
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News
The Jammed named best film at Australia's Inside Film Awards
The Home Song Stories, The Jammed and Happy Feet were the three films that went home with the most honours from the Inside Film (IF) Awards, held tonight on Queensland's Gold Coast.The self-financed film The Jammed won best film, and best script for writer-director Dee McLachlan, while The Home Song ...
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News
Secret Sunshine wins best film at Asia Pacific Screen Awards
Korean director Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine (Miryang) tonight won the award for best feature at the inaugural Asia Pacific Screen Awards, and also best actress for Jeon Do-Yeon, but otherwise the awards were evenly spread. If any country shone through it was Iran: the international jury lead by Indian actor ...
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News
Melbourne Premiere Fund awards docs, Bran Nue Dae
The big-screen adaptation of successful musical Bran Nue Dae and four feature-length documentaries have received the first $324,800 (A$350,000) from the Melbourne International Film Festival's $1.3m (A$1.4m) Premiere Fund. One of the documentaries is about US celebrity commentator Dominic Dunne and will include footage of him covering music producer Phil ...
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News
Australia - ASIA pacific awards - Pacific celebration
Held on the sandy shores of the Queensland Gold Coast in Australia, the inaugural Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsas) aims to celebrate and promote some of the region's leading films and film-makers to the international industry.'There is a marketing push behind all of this,' says Apsa chairman Des Power. 'I ...
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News
Oz start-up Cyan Films set to produce Auction with Ghobadi
Julie Ryan, who has produced director Rolf de Heer's films for the past decade, and new media producer Kate Croser have set up Cyan Films, a new Adelaide-based production company. One of their films, Auction, could be the first co-production between Australia and Iran. The directorial debut of Granaz Moussavi ...
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News
Millerplanning to tap Australia tax offset for Justice League
George Miller (Happy Feet) has confirmed that he hopes to get Australian film status for his next project, a comic book adaptation for Warner Bros starring Batman, Superman and a host of other comic book superheroes. If he is successful, he will be able to claim back 40% of a ...
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News
Favelle launches Sydney-based sales agency
Former Arclight Films executive Michael Favelle has been quietly establishing his own sales agency, Odin's Eye Entertainment (OEE), based at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney. Favelle said his intention is to handle six to eight projects per year with a focus on independent, genre-driven features in the $1m to $15m ...
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News
Australia's documentary film-makers could get $18m boost
Australian documentary makers are hoping to eventually get $18m (A$20m) per year for production and marketing from philanthropists and corporate donors thanks to the creation of the Australian Documentary Foundation. Documentary Australia was launched tonight in Sydney and aims to educate the two sectors about each other through a comprehensive ...
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News
Roxburgh's Romulus leads Australian Film Institute nominees
Actor Richard Roxburgh's debut film as a director, Romulus, My Father, leads the nominees for the Dec 6 Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards.Romulus, The Home Song Stories, Lucky Miles and Noise have been nominated for best film. Roxburgh has been nominated best director, alongside Tony Ayres for the Home Song ...
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News
Saville's Noise takes top prize at Australian Directors Guild Awards
Matt Saville's drama Noise, about a highly unmotivated police officer, and Kriv Stenders' ultra low-budget project Boxing Day, about a man struggling to stay clear of drugs and crime, won the two major feature film prizes at the Australian Directors Guild (ADG) Awards on Saturday in Sydney.Noise won the most ...