All articles by Sandy George – Page 34
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Ledger, Weisz set to make Dirt Music with Noyce
Heath Ledger and RachelWeisz have agreed to play the star-crossed lovers in an adaptation of the TimWinton novel Dirt Music, to bedirected by Phillip Noyce on home soil from March 2007.Weisz won the Academy Award forbest actress this year for The ConstantGardener - and had her first childyesterday - while ...
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Magna Pacific snaps up Prairie Home Companion
Magna Pacific has acquiredAustralian and New Zealand rights to Oscar-winning director Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion from CapitolFilms.The company plans to releasethe film in September 2007, joining a theatrical line-up that includes Perfect Creature, August Rush, Lonely Hearts,Penelope, Renaissance, The AstronautFarmer and Because I Said So."Prairie will emulate Robert ...
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FACB founder Rob Fisher dies in Sydney
Today was a black day forthe Australian film industry with the death last night of Rob Fisher, thefounding chief executive of one of only two long-standing completion bondcompanies in the country.Fisher was known as astraight shooter and was very popular. He was a watchdog at the financial endof what is ...
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Becker picks up world rights to Workman's Bronte
Becker International haspicked up worldwide rights to Angela Workman's Bronte, which is set to star Oscar-nominated actress MichelleWilliams (Brokeback Mountain).Williams will play the titlecharacter of Charlotte Bronte, who defied class and gender to write suchclassic novels as Jane Eyre. The castalso includes Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Imelda Staunton, Brian Cox and ...
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Australian government to review film funding
The Australian governmenthas announced, at the same time as handing down the annual budget, that it willreview the effectiveness of the various ways in which it supports films in Australia.The review will encompass,among other things, the investment vehicle Film Finance Corporation Australia(FFC), development agency the Australian Film Commission (AFC), tax ...
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Collette, Castle-Hughes to star in Esther Blueburger
Oscar-nominatedAustralian-born actresses, Toni Collette and Keisha Castle-Hughes, have agreedto board teen coming-of-age drama Hey,Hey It's Esther Blueburger.The film starts shooting in Adelaide in October and is being introduced to theinternational marketplace at Cannes by sales agent Lightning Entertainment. BVI hasAustralian rights.The two seasoned actors wereof course chosen for their talent ...
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Buena Vista picks up Oz rights to Samoan Wedding
Buena Vista Internationalhas picked up Australian rights to feel-good New Zealand comedy SamoanWedding (aka Sione's Wedding) andwill release it in mid-July.Director Chris Graham'sdebut film grossed $2m (NZ$3.14m) for Sony in its first five weeks on homesoil. Putting aside US-funded local blockbusters such as the Lord Of The Rings trilogy and ...
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FFC Australia backs diverse slate of new projects
Film Finance Corporation Australia has provisionallypromised funding to three features, including writer-director Christina Andreef's adaptation of the novel Shiver, one of 18 projects in Cannes' scriptdevelopment program L'Atelier.The other two dramas are Two Fists One Heart, to be directed by NewYork-based Australian John Polson (Swimfan, Hide and Seek),and the German-Australian-Chinese ...
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Ten Canoes to open Sydney Film Festival
Un Certain Regard Cannes entrant Rolf de Heer's TenCanoes is to open the 53rd Sydney Film Festival (SFF) on June 9."We are absolutely thrilled to have such an exciting anddistinctively Australian film open the festival," said SFF artistic directorLynden Barber in the statement."It is fitting that such a beautifully poetic ...
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Melbourne film festival to close with Mayhem
Black comedy Suburban Mayhem, starring Emily Barclay,will close the 55th Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) on August 13. Director Paul Goldman (Australian Rules, The Night They Called It A Day) said the festival is seen as bothan audience-friendly and cutting edge event and is the perfect place to launchthe film: ...
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Arclight, Roadshow board Gray debut
International sales agentArclight Films and Australian distributor Roadshow have signed on to When She Gets There, the debut featurefrom writer-director Richard Gray.Cassandra McGrath, whosecredits include Wolf Creek, has been lined up to star in the $2.93m (A$4m) film,which is scheduled to start shooting at the end of July. Gray is ...
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Becker appoints Keen as CEO; Bradley to relocate to LA
Tim Keen has beenappointed as the new CEO of Becker Group Limited, the film exhibition,distribution, production and sales company. In an unrelated move, thehead of sales company Becker Films International, Reiko Bradley, will soonrelocate from Sydney to Los Angeles. Bradley is a shareholderand made the reverse move when she helped ...
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Chris Graham's horror film The Ferryman goes into production
Horror film, The Ferryman, a United Kingdom/New Zealand co-production to star the Emmy-nominated John Rhys Davies and Silver Bear winner Kerry Fox, goes into production March 31.The film shoots in Auckland and Waiheke Island and follows a group of twenty-something-year-olds as they charter a boat into the South Pacific, intending ...
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Film Finance Corporation Australia to fund two new features
Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) today gavefinal approval on its investments in the animated feature $9.99 and a feature-length documentary investigating discreditedauthor Norma Khouri.The stop-motion animation for adults, $9.99, is the first officialbig-screen co-production between Australian and Israel.Israeli director Tatia Rosenthal wrote the scriptwith Etgar Keret and hasbeen working with ...
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FFC to keep funding requirements intact
Film Finance CorporationAustralia (FFC) chief executive Brian Rosen has confirmed that the funding bodyhas backed off from a proposal to ask for more money from its feature filminvestment partners.As it always does at thistime of year, the FFC has been conducting open meetings with Australian filmmakersand liaising with key industry ...
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Fraser's No. 2 benefits from festival exposure
New Zealand Film has signedoff on several sales on Toa Fraser's No.2 which won the audience award for drama in the World Cinema section atSundance and later screened in Berlin. The film has been sold to Spain (Avalon), Scandinavia (CCV), Switzerland (Xenith), Greece (Prooptiki), Thailand (Pacific Entertainment) and Argentina (Telexcel). ...
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Feature debut for Unjoo Moon with adaptation of children's book
Unjoo Moon is to direct an adaptation of children's book The Wicked, Wicked Ladies In The HauntedHouse. She directed short film, Sorrow'sChild in 1998 and this will be her feature debut. It also looks likely to bethe next project for Moon's cinematographer husband, DionBeebe who won an Oscar for Memoirs ...
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Director Samantha Lang's project accepted into Aurora
Director Samantha Lang'sfourth feature may well be The RosevilleStory, following its acceptance into Aurora, a high-profile script hothouse run by the NewSouth Wales Film and Television Office (FTO). Lang made Cannes competition title The Well and the Monkey's Mask in Australia, and The Idolin France. Her actor/director husbandJeremy Sims is ...
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James Hewison to head up the Australian Film Institute
James Hewison will move on to be chiefexecutive of the Australian Film Institute (AFI) in August once he wraps hisfifth Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). He will be the third AFI chief in just over a year and replaces GeoffreyWilliams who left in January despite revitalising the 2005 AFI Awards ...
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Flood of Australian film shoot without FFC funds
Film-maker Alkinos Tsilimidos is soon tolock on his fourth feature, the crime thriller Em 4 Jay. In keeping with his focus on social realist cinema - andhis disinterest in "safe, middle-class" stories - it follows two people whoturn to armed robbery to sustain their smack habit.Keeping budgets low allowshim to ...