All articles by Sandy George – Page 29
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News
Edgerton debut to feature in AFC's IndiVision Lab
The Australian Film Commission (AFC) has unveiled the eight low-budget projects that will take part its IndiVision Project Lab, one of which will be the directorial debut of Kinky Boots star Joel Edgerton. Edgerton's film The Professor is a thriller about a top forensic scientist investigating a family murder-suicide, who ...
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News
Hewison to exit Australian Film Institute before 50th awards
In the lead up to its 50th anniversary awards and in the wake of James Hewison's resignation, the Australian Film Institute has begun searching for a new chief executive.AFI chair Morry Schwartz told The Age newspaper that he hoped the organisation would be able to get someone of the same ...
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News
ScreenWest's low-budget initiative gets Wasted
Teen thriller Wasted will be the third feature supported under West Coast Visions, the low-budget initiative run by Western Australia 's film agency ScreenWest. A high school party goes dangerously off the rails in what will be the debut film of writer/director Ben C. Lucas, but one teenager finds that ...
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News
Melbourne Film Festival fund blesses Kokkinos
Blessed, the third feature from Ana Kokkinos (Head On, The Book Of Revelations), has taken a big step closer to going into production with a cash offer from the Melbourne International Film Festival's (MIFF) production fund. MIFF's Premiere Fund provides small amounts of strategic investment and has just announced four ...
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News
Australian Directors Guild to wait before replacing Macrae
The Australian Directors Guild (ADG) is now without an executive director following the surprise departure of Drew Macrae but the organisation will not invite applications for the role until after the next board meeting in early February. 'We have been rebuilding for 18 months and are still in the process ...
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News
Phillip Noyce honoured as Australia charmsHollywood
Director Phillip Noyce was honoured on Saturday night in Hollywood for his significant contribution to the Australian film industry and for excellence in promoting Australia in the US.Noyce was presented with his award by Harrison Ford, the star of two of his US films, Patriot Games and Clear and Present ...
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News
Oz box office up 3% for second biggest year on record
Australians spent $801.7m (A$895m) on going to the movies in 2007, making it the second best year on record in terms of annual gross box office.The Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia (MPDAA) released the figure today and said it represented a 3% rise on the previous year. Only in ...
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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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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 ...