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All articles by Sandy George – Page 55
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Trish Lake getting busy in Australia
With buzz building back home on her first credit, the unfinished Gettin' Square, Queensland-based producer Trish Lake is at Cannes with three projects. The most advanced is The Digger, which is being written by the mother/son/stepfather team of Jan Bradnam, Ashley Bradnam and Terry McCann.Babe director and co-writer Chris Noonan ...
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Australia's development agency and archives to merge
The film industry is generally perplexed by last night's surprise news that the Australian Government has decided to merge the Australian FilmCommission (AFC), which has the principal role of developing Australian films and film-makers, and Screensound, the organisation which collects and preserves the country's audiovisual heritage.Legislation will have to be ...
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Australia's Rialto swoops on Broken Wings
On the eve of the Cannes Film Festival, Rialto Entertainment has bought Australian and New Zealand rights for Broken Wings from Pathe. The film was Israel's best foreign film contender at this year's Academy Awards. Rialto principal Kelly Rogers describes the film, which he saw for the first time at ...
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Australia's FFC chief outlines new funding model
Six weeks into his new role as chief executive of Australia's Film Finance Corporation (FFC), Brian Rosen has called on local producers to make better use of his organisation's funds and to vary the ways they finance films. He also wants them to tell bigger stories that will attract the ...
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Dark Lady Of DNA could be follow-up film to Whale Rider
New Zealand's South Pacific Pictures (SPP) is developing a feature based on the book by Brenda Maddox about the life of Rosalind Franklin, whose work was essential to the discovery of DNA. The book, which is titled Rosalind Franklin, The Dark Lady of DNA, discusses how Franklin got no recognition ...
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Palace backs next film by Japanese Story trio
Palace Films has committed to the Australian release of comedy/drama Driving Back To Dubbo from the Melbourne-based team behind this year's Un Certain Regard entrant Japanese Story.It will be the third film from director Sue Brooks, writer Alison Tilson and producer Sue Maslin. The debut film for all three ...
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Australia's Imagine to release Undead
Australia's distribution newcomer Imagine Entertainment has picked up local rights to Undead, the horror film produced, directed and written by Queensland-based brothers Peter and Michael Spierig. Imagine principal John Vale will release the film after it has shown at all three east coast festivals, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The film ...
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Hating Alison Ashley gets greenlight
Australia's Film Finance Corporation board yesterday agreed to finance the feature Hating Alison Ashley to be directed by Rod Hardy from a script by Christine Madafferi. The teen comedy is an adaptation of Robin Klein's award-winning coming-of-age novel of the same name.Film Victoria is also contributing funding and a significant ...
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Local comedy to open 50th Sydney Film Festival
The Honourable Wally Norman, a film that continues Australia's long comedy tradition of the underdog succeeding against all odds, is the opening night film of the 50th Sydney Film Festival. Kevin Harrington (The Dish) is in the lead role of Wally, who is accidentally nominated to run for Federal Parliament.The ...
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Icon grabs worldwide rights to Jindabyne
Icon Entertainment International has jumped aboard Jindabyne, the next film by director Ray Lawrence, who gave Australia its biggest commercial and critical hit of 2001 with Lantana. It is the first time the company has grabbed all worldwide sales rights to an Australian film since its local distribution arm opened ...
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Mushroom options NZ gang tale Stonedogs
Sydney-based Mushroom Pictures has announced that it has optioned Craig Marriner's debut novel Stonedogs, which deals with gang and drug culture in a city resembling the author's home town of Rotorua in New Zealand.The novel was the controversial winner of the Deutz Medal for Fiction at NZ's 2002 Montana Book ...
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Underwater facility set to launch in Sydney
A major underwater filming facility is to be built in Sydney, which is being billed as one of the biggest and best in the world by the company behind the project. Industry veterans Greg Timms and Simon Kerslake are working at "breakneck speed" in order to accommodate several projects already ...
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Impressive opening for gross-out Australian comedy
The politically incorrect Australian comedy Fat Pizza grossed $702,000 from 101 screens over its opening weekend, putting it in second place in the national chart and giving it the best screen average of the top 20.A highly impressive result for distributor Roadshow, Fat Pizza is the micro-budget big screen version ...
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Maynard, Kelly team for Australian/UK co-production
Film producer John Maynard, who has just been presented with an honorary degree from the Australian Film, Television & Radio School, is working with UK producer David Kelly on the financing of an adaptation of Randolph Stow's novel The Merry-Go-Round In The Sea. The co-production has been scripted by Peter ...
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Schepisi lined up for Australian project after 15-year absence
Two expatriate Australian directors, Fred Schepisi (Last Orders) and John Polson (Swimfan), may be among those to benefit from the second fundraising by Australian partners the Nine Network and Macquarie bank, it was revealed last night. Schepisi was presented with the highest honour at the Australian Screen Directors Association awards ...
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Australia's Film Finance Corp backs Deck Dogz, Scarlett
Writer/director Steve Pasvolsky's short film Inja failed to win an Oscar in the live action category for which it was nominated, but yesterday he got a very significant consolation prize: the Film Finance Corporation (FFC) agreed to invest in his debut feature Deck Dogz. Pay-TV outfit The Movie Network is ...
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Forsyth, Beaufoy to help finesse four Aurora projects
A second film from Soft Fruit creative team Christina Andreef and Helen Bowden, and yet another from one of the country's most experienced producers, Matt Carroll, are two of the four projects chosen for the second intensive Aurora script development workshop.Bill Forsyth, who wrote and directed Scottish film Local Hero, ...
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Ned Kelly has third best local opening in Australia
Ned Kelly grossed $460,000 - the third biggest opening day for an Australian film, behind Moulin Rouge and Crocodile Dundee 2.The massive local campaign has included a blitz-style publicity tour featuring most of the key cast, including star Heath Ledger, a huge number of massive outdoor billboards and a ...
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Silverscreen Films launches in New Zealand
Sydney-based producer Don Reynolds, who made a raft of New Zealand films in the 1980s, has created Silverscreen Films, a feature film and television production company with Geoff Dixon, a giant of the New Zealand commercials production scene. Already on the company slate is Spooked, which Reynolds and Dixon hope ...
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UIP wins Australian Ned Kelly appeal
Those under 15 years of age will now be able to see Ned Kelly without being accompanied by an adult following a decision by Australia's five-member Classification Review Board to classify the film M15+ rather than the tougher MA15+ originally imposed after a split vote. The film is recommended for ...