All articles by Sandy George – Page 62
-
News
Lantana, Moulin Rouge bag Oz critics awards
Producer Jan Chapman won the best film award for Lantana at the Film Critics Circle Awards on Feb 22, while Baz Luhrmann took home the best director trophy for Moulin Rouge, making it less of a one-horse race than the Australian Film Institute Awards in November had been. Lantana also ...
-
News
Oz pay-TV players call for Hollywood price sanity
Kim Williams, the new chief executive of Australia's dominant pay-TV player Foxtel, has called on the Hollywood studios that supply his industry to stop "pricing us into oblivion."Instead, Williams asked his US film suppliers to work with the Australian pay TV sector to find a new commercial model that replaces ...
-
News
NZ's Rialto to enter Australian distribution
New Zealand distributor Rialto Entertainment is to directly distribute into Australia for the first time with the release of the Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film, Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land on April 25, followed mid-year by NZ director Christine Jeff's Rain.Rain has grossed $210,000 (NZ$500,000) in its ...
-
News
Oz tax smallprint reveals gov't 'runaway' hopes
With its recent introduction of a new scheme regulating the "refundable tax offset", the Australian government now anticipates that the level of runaway films shooting in Australia will increase to 10 per year within five years and have a total value of $440.3m (A$850m), with $253.8m (A$490m) of this spent ...
-
News
New Zealand mourns actor Kevin Smith
New Zealand is mourning the untimely death of local actor Kevin Smith, who died in a Beijing Hospital as the result of a fall. At the time of the accident he had been preparing to return home and begin preparation for Man Of War with Bruce Willis, a role many ...
-
News
Byrne and Colosimo go for Take Away
In front of the cameras, when they start to roll this week on the new Australian comedy Take Away, will be a very strong cast including Rose Byrne, who won best actress at the Venice Film Festival in 2000 for her role in The Goddess Of '67. She will be ...
-
News
Oz govt set to restore confidence in tax scheme
Australia's competitive appeal as a location for offshore productions, threatened last year when tax breaks were denied to investors in Red Planet and Moulin Rouge, is set to be restored following the Government's establishment of a new scheme regulating the "refundable tax offset".Australia's Government has held its ground on some ...
-
News
CCS wins Oz's Melbourne studio contract
Central City Studios (CCS) have been declared "preferred tenderer" for the job of building and operating a studio and post-production complex in Melbourne. The move is a big step forward towards establishing Australia's third substantial studio complex in its second biggest city.While CCS managing director Tim Barnett says the core ...
-
News
Film Critics of Australia announce nominations
Lantana, Moulin Rouge, Mullet and The Bank have a chance of being crowned best film in the 2002 Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards with the trophy going to one of the producers, namely Jan Chapman, Baz Luhrmann (and others), Vincent Sheehan or John Maynard respectively.But the directors of each ...
-
News
China's Yon Fan honoured at Mardi Gras fest
Chinese director Yon Fan will be the guest of the 2002 Australian Mardi Gras Film Festival, (Sydney, Feb 13-24) as part of a special focus on contemporary gay Asian cinema that will see the screening of features from South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong. Fan's trilogy Bugis Street (1994), ...
-
News
Alan Finney awarded Order of Australia medal
Alan Finney, vice president and managing director of Buena Vista International (Australia and New Zealand), was among the Australians honoured as part of the weekend's Australia Day celebrations. His Order of Australia Medal (OAM) is a signal of his status as the most experienced distributor in the country and one ...
-
News
Oz FFC denies outgoing CEO was 'pushed'
The Australian Film Finance Corporation (FFC) has been forced into releasing a statement confirming that it is Catriona Hughes' own decision to leave her job when her second contract as chief executive expires this year. The move was prompted by the publication of several articles implying she is being forced ...
-
News
Becker snaps up Australia's Globe Group
Australian film distributor Becker Entertainment has acquired Richard Payten and Andrew Mackie's highly regarded distribution, marketing and audience research entity, The Globe Group. Managing director Richard Becker said the move both strengthens Becker's film division and increases Globe's capacity to handle films, but insists that Globe will continue to ...
-
News
Top Oz TV executive in surprise departure
David Leckie, widely considered to be the most powerful television executive in Australia, was replaced as chief executive of the Nine Network late yesterday (Jan 8). For many years the Nine Network has been the highest rating network but events in the past 12 months have lead to its supremacy ...
-
News
New Zealand moves against parallel imports
The New Zealand Government yesterday announced it will introduce legislation to ban parallel import of video.The move will prevent films, videos and DVDs from being imported by retailers or persons other than the authorised distributor within nine months of its worldwide release. The policy will not affect private or domestic ...
-
News
Icon buys Australian rights for Swimfan
Icon Film Distribution is believed to have bought Australian rights for the teen thriller Swimfan, from sales agent Cobalt. It is the second film and first offshore outing from local director John Polson, working under the umbrella of GreeneStreet Films and Michael Douglas's Furthur Films. Erika Christensen, Jesse Bradford and ...
-
News
Ocean's Wally Norman gets FFC funding
The Film Finance Corporation (FFC) is to invest in The Honourable Wally Norman, allowing Ocean Pictures to fulfil its sales agent ambitions. The comedy will be represented internationally by both Ocean and the UK's Alibi Film Sales, under an agreement struck when the Australian company launched nearly two years ago.The ...
-
News
Oz producers lobby for film promotion funds
Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) president Nick Murray has called for the introduction of a scheme to inject up to $260,000 (A$500,000) into the p&a budgets of local films.The move, he said, would help Australian films to overcome the difficulties they have in securing prominent and sustained release. "US ...
-
News
Lantana makes history at AFI awards
It was a one-horse race at the annual AFI (Australian Film Institute) Awards on November 16. Lantana made history by being the only film to win the seven top awards: best film for Jan Chapman, best director for Ray Lawrence, best actor and actress for Anthony LaPaglia and Kerry Armstrong, ...
-
News
Oz features take a dive in number and value
Government sources provided 53% of the $42.7m (A$82m) spent on the 26 Australian films that went into production in the 12 months to June 30, 2001, according to the Australian Film Commission's (AFC) production survey released Nov 13. This is the lowest number of local features, the lowest amount spent, ...