All articles by Sandy George – Page 36
-
News
Rialto picks up Science Of Sleep
Rialto Distribution hasacquired writer/director Michel Gondry's TheScience Of Sleep for Australia and New Zealand, hot on the heels of its sale to Warner IndependentPictures for North America and the UK at Sundance. The inventive film starsGael Garcia Bernal (The MotorcycleDiaries) and Charlotte Gainsbourg as young neighbours in a playful andtouching ...
-
News
Adelaide festival offers cash prize for new competition
The biennial Adelaide Film Festival has introduced a feature film competition which will see the director of the winning film go home $19,400 (A$25,000) richer.Festival director Katrina Segwick says the move means Adelaide is now one of a small number of festivals throughout the world that offers substantial cash awards. ...
-
News
Noyce to be honoured by Australian Screen Directors
Director Phillip Noyce is toreceive an outstanding achievement award on April 6, the top annual honourbestowed by the Australian Screen Directors Association (ASDA).Noyce was in the first classof students at the Australian Film, Television & Radio School and his first feature was Newsfrontin 1978, which won best film in the ...
-
News
AFI manager quits despite successful awards show
The general manager of theAustralian Film Institute (AFI), Geoffrey Williams, has resigned two monthsafter successfully overseeing a revitalised awards ceremony compered by actorRussell Crowe.Williams has citeddifferences of opinion with a board that has three new members and a new chairbut the exact nature of the disagreement has not yet emerged. ...
-
News
Dalton leaves Australian Film Commission for ABC
The Australian governmentagency with responsibility for developing features has to go in search of a newchief executive now that Kim Dalton has been made director of television atpublic broadcaster the ABC. The Australian FilmCommission (AFC) has only just appointed Chris Fitchett to head filmdevelopment, a division that spends about $12.8m ...
-
News
Australia's box office takings down by 10%
Preliminary figures indicate that Australia'sgross box office for 2005 was 10% less than the previous year.A spokesperson for the Motion Picture DistributorsAssociation of Australia (MPDAA) says official results will not be announceduntil mid to late January but a source told Screendaily.comthat the 2005 result will be around $610.6m (A$815m). This ...
-
News
Mullis, Oz producers win licence to launch FLIC
An eclectic team of peopledriven by executive producer Barrie M. Osborne (The Lord Of The Rings), producer Richard Keddie and Bangkok-basedfinancier Robert Mullis have won a licence to raise money in Australia for film production. Others named as part of theMullis Capital Film Licensed Investment Company (FLIC) are actors Hugo ...
-
News
Fitchett appointed to leading Australian film role
The AustralianFilm Commission (AFC) has appointed Chris Fitchett as director of filmdevelopment.Fitchett- a former chief executive of the AFC's Commercial Television ProductionFund - has been acting director since October. Therole has the potential to be the most influential in Australia in terms of whatprojects get developed.
-
News
Becker Films sells Control to four territories
Becker Films International(BFI) has signed off on four deals for Control,the upcoming biopic about Joy Division front man Ian Curtis. Paradiso has thefilm in Benelux, La Fabrique de Film in France, Momentum Pictures in the UK and sister companyDendy in Australia and New Zealand."It seems to have struck achord with ...
-
News
Preserving Australia's film heritage
Fifty classicAustralian films made from 1955 through to 1992 have benefited from a preservationproject begun five years ago. Theproject combines the expertise and resources of film stock supplier Kodak (Australasia), laboratory AtlabAustralia and the National Film and Sound Archive(NFSA). The films selected included: Jedda, Breaker Morant, The CarsThat Ate Paris, ...
-
News
Future Films Australia opens for business
A productruling from the Australian Tax Office (ATO) was made public yesterday,signalling that the new financing outfit Future Films Australia is officiallyopen for business in a market not previously renowned for attracting privateinvestment into film.The rulinggives more momentum to Future Films' search for both high net worth individualswho are potential ...
-
News
FFC backs production on two Australian films
Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) today agreed to fund the thriller Storm Warning and the coming-of-age teencomedy Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger.Estherwill be the debut for Cathy Randall but StormWarning is from Jamie Blanks, who jumped from a graduation film to Hollywood horror films UrbanLegends (1998) and Valentine (2001).The Storm ...
-
News
Worried Australian exhibitors form national association
Concern about falling attendances, piracy, release windows and new classification rules have led to the formation of the firstnational organisation of Australian exhibitors."Forthe first time in what is a notoriously aggressive industry, the issues thatdraw us together are greater than the issues that force us apart," head ofDendy Cinemas Mark ...
-
News
Look Both Ways dominates Aussie awards
Compere Russell Crowe andthe film Look Both Ways were thestars of the Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards at the Melbourne CentralCity Studios.Oscar-winner Crowe made a significantcontribution to the revitalisation of an event that had lost its gloss inrecent years, injectingcomedy by threatening to throw the black phone next to the ...
-
News
The Proposition scoops best film at IF Awards
Australian/UK co-production The Proposition, an often brutal 1880stale of conflict between brothers, was awarded best feature film at the IF(Inside Film) Awards in Sydneytonight (Nov 23). Look Both Ways won the best director and best writer categories for Sarah Watt. Theintimate drama picked up three awards in all while The ...
-
News
Trio feted at NZ producers' conference
New filmmaker RoseanneLiang, independent producer Elizabeth Mitchell and industry champion DaveGibson were all honoured at New Zealand's annual producers' conference on Friday evening(Nov 18) in Wellington.Gibson produced thecommercially successful feature TheIrrefutable Truth About Demons but is better known for the hours of televisionof all genres created at production powerhouse The ...
-
News
BoyTown, December Boys crank up in Australia
Cameras started rolling onMonday on two high-profile Australian productions - BoyTown, the Molloy Boy Productions follow-up to Crackerjack, and December Boys, starring Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame.Mick Molloy co-wrote,co-produces and is one of the stars of BoyTown,just as he was on Crackerjack, whichgrossed $5.6m (A$7.7m) for distributor Roadshow and ...
-
News
Look Both Ways scores with Australian critics
Look Both Ways won the behind-the-camera trifecta of best film, best director and bestoriginal script at the Film Critics Circle of Australia (FCCA) awards at theweekend.The drama was written anddirected by Sarah Watt and produced by Bridget Ikin immediately prior to herbecoming one of the two evaluation managers at Film ...
-
News
Madman grabs Three Burials for Oz/NZ
Madman Cinema has acquiredall Australian and New Zealand rights to TheThree Burials Of Melquiades Estrada from French sales agent EuropaCorp.The film is the directorialdebut of Tommy Lee Jones, whose performance in the drama earned him the bestactor award at Cannes this year. Writer Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) won ...
-
News
Wolf Creek proves weekend winner in Australia
Wolf Creek hasbecome the first Australian film to open at number one in its first weekendsince Ned Kelly in 2003. And it hasbecome only the second Australian film with an R+18 rating to go to the top ofthe charts. Writer/directorGreg McLean's horror debut grossed $0.9m (A$1.224m) from 151 screens for ...