Tropfest announces top 15 finalists
Short film competition Tropfest has announced its top 15 finalists for 2012.
The line up of directors includes a actors, comedians, IF Award winners, second generation filmmakers and the youngest ever Tropfest finalist.
Screen Australian offer grants to India
Screen Australia has announced grant offerings for producers to attend an Indian film convention.
Travel grants up to $2,500 are available to producers with advanced projects to attend the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) Frames Convention in Mumbai, 14-16 March.
The Straits debuts with a weak 600,000
ABC’s new series The Straits has had a slow ratings start to its ten episode run.
Produced by Matchbox Pictures, producers of last year’s success The Slap, The Straits movie length premiere averaged 599,000, peaking at 696,000 viewers last night, according to preliminary ratings by Oztam.
Iloura comes to Sydney
Melbourne-based VFX studio Iloura has opened new studios in East Sydney.
Led by Alastair Stephen executive producer commercials, the Sydney studio has a team of VFX artists, designers, colourists and producers including head of 3D and CG Jonathan Dearing, design director Finn Spencer, VFX designer Kent Smith, senior producer Simone Crow and colourists Marcus Timpson and Dwaine Hyde.
The Grandmothers goes into production on Monday, Australian support cast announced
Australian actors Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom), Sophie Lowe (The Slap) and Gary Sweet (Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) and Jessica Tovey (underbelly) have been announced as supporting cast in the new Australian/French co-production The Grandmothers.
Starring Naomi Watts and fellow Australian Xavier Samuel, as well as Robin Wright and James Frecheville the film is a collaboration between producer Andrew Mason of Hopscotch Features and French producer Phillipe Carcassonne (The Illusionist, Coco avant Chanel) with Anne Fontaine (Coco avant Chanel) directing.
Film critic responds to director’s rant
The film critic on the receiving end of a rant by a director at Tuesday’s inaugural AACTA Awards after giving the film a negative review has told Encore that there was no personal attack to the director.
During the AACTA Awards, A Few Best Men director Stephan Elliott attacked The Age’s Jim Schembri over the critic’s review of the film, accusing Schembri of personal attacks. The attack was removed from Nine’s broadcast of the show.
A Few Best Men director slams film critic at AACTA awards
Director Stephan Elliott took the opportunity to deliver a serve to film critic Jim Schembri at the inaugural AACTA awards at the Sydney Opera House last night. Elliott bit back at Schembri’s review of A Few Best Men, which branded the film ‘unreleasable’. Despite Schembri’s review, the film opened with solid box office takings last weekend. In a lengthy rant, Elliott slammed Schembri for “personal attacks” within the review of the film as he lashed out at people unwilling to support the Australian film industry. Elliott told the audience that his tirade would be removed from Channel Nine’s delayed broadcast of the awards as producers had flagged this, along with several other categories, to be excluded prior to the show.
The AACTA ceremony, delivered minus a host, saw box office champion Red Dog take home the best film award but the biggest success of the night was dark drama Snowtown which bagged four awards including best adapted screenplay and best direction. Read more »
Iron Sky selected for Berlin International Film Festival
Sci-fi film Iron Sky, directed by Timo Vuorensola, has been selected into the Berlin International Film Festival 2012.
Australian production company New Holland Pictures’ Mark and Cathy Overett have co-producing credits for the film which is an Australian/Finnish/German co-production.
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A Few Best Men takes $1.8m on opening weekend
Australian film A Few Best Men has had a strong opening weekend, according to the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia.
The film, directed by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) took over $1.83m across 242 screens, with a screen average of $7,580.
Jack McCoy’s Deeper Shade of Blue gets March release
Surf filmmaker Jack McCoy will release his latest film A Deeper Shade of Blue in cinemas from Thursday 22 March.
The film, McCoy’s 25th, tells the story of surfing, from wooden planks in Hawaii in the late 1800s after a missionary ban to the days of TV surfer girl Gidget to today, that sees the sport as a $6b global industry.
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