In a statement, Film Victoria said the agency “had to make some tough decisions” and due to an increase in demand across all programs, as well as reduced funds, some had to be discontinued: “We know some practioners will be disappointed to hear this news, and we regret that we’re no longer able to fund these areas”.

The digital media programs are still under review. New programs will be announced in October, but in the meantime, Internships with a Company (Digital Media) and Public Screen Engagement (with limited capacity) will continue in 2010/11.

The following programs will no longer be offered: Cross Platform Development, Digital Media Scoping, Production Investment for Games, Global Connections (Digital Media), Screen Industry Development (Digital Media), International Market Support (Digital Media) and International Festival Support (Digital Media).

The agency added it would “definitely fund digital media and games into the future”, but still had to find a way to best support this sector. 

Other areas are still in development, including Industry and Audience Development, Slate Funding Business Support for Emerging/Established Producers, and Propeller Shorts. More announcements on these will be made in November.

International Market Support was integrated into a revised Global Connections Business Support program, which will now fund attendance at approved international markets and/or targeted international business travel. It will still include funding for first-time market attendees to engage an experienced market mentor, with the requirement for applicants to contribute at least 25 percent to the cost of their market and/or targeted business travel. The guidelines are here.

For other programs, changes were introduced to streamline processes, reduce the number of deadlines, and make the guidelines clearer than before. The programs affected are Production Investment, Internship on a Production, Internship with a Company (Film and TV), International Festival Support, Factual Development (Early and Advance stages), Fiction Development: Feature Film, Fiction Development: Feature Film Final Stage, Fiction Development: TV Concept, and Fiction Development: TV Co-Funded. These changes are available on the Film Victoria website.

Film Victoria added that following the conclusion of its formal review process, it would launch ’phase two’ and change the structure of its programs and guidelines to align more closely with the Victorian Screen Industry Strategy (VSIS). Programs will be grouped according to the VSIS priority areas, rather than by theme or stage of production, with five overarching guidelines instead of one for each program.

Including previews, the film directed by Stuart Beattie and based on John Marsden’s novel, has made $802,184.

In New Zealand, Tomorrow… earned NZ$79,077 and, just like in Australia, became the third biggest opening for an Australian film – also behind Happy Feet and Australia.

Paramount MD Mike Selwyn said they were “delighted” to see Tomorrow… open “to such strong numbers and so far ahead of all the international competition in the marketplace”.

“We look forward to many more people discovering the film over this weekend and in coming weeks and hope that this is just the start of the success for Tomorrow… as the word of mouth spreads,” he added in a statement.

Brisbane will also have its first Underground Film Festival on September 9-October 1. 

Barron announced that this year’s BIFF – the 19th edition – will have a new look,, now under the direction of the state’s new head of screen culture and former MIFF director, Richard Moore. It will also feature new venues (Palace Centro, Palace Barracks and the Tribal Theatre) and “refreshed” programming and awards that will cover films from Australia and across the world, documentaries, animation, late night thrillers, retrospectives and music films. Details will be announced in the coming weeks. 

The festival’s Queensland Short Film Competition (QSFC) – designed to reward and develop the creative talents of Queensland short filmmaker – will have a new category, the Chauvel Award for best project pitch, with a development investment of $15,000 from Screen Queensland. This award complements the best short ($2,500) and audience favourite ($2,500) cash awards. 

Another option for the Brisbane public is the three-night Brisbane Underground Film Festival, which will open with a documentary on indie band The Magnetic Fields, entitled Strange Powers. BUFF is headed by Nina Riddel. 

The Australian horror film Primal will also screen at BUFF, which will be be held at the Brisbane Powerhouse.

The film is now scheduled for November 4, one week after the previous October 28 date.

The Loved Ones has screened successfully at international and Australian festivals, but Madman has struggled to find a ‘perfect’ release date for it, having announced June, August and September releases that were ultimately postponed.

The $2m film will start production in November and, according to the Aquarius Films Twitter account, it will shoot in Australia and Cambodia – where the filmmakers recently found their locations and cast.

Say Nothing is co-written by Darcy-Smith and Felicity Price and it’s the story of a man who goes on an ill-fated holiday in South East Asia with his wife and her sister and the sister’s boyfriend.

It will be produced by Angie Fielder in association with Blue-Tongue Films.

Financing comes from Screen Australia, Screen NSW, Level K and Hopscotch. International sales are in charge of Denmark’s LevelK.

Beneficiaries include an apocalyptic film produced by Antony Ginnane, a factual/fiction hybried by Amiel Courtin-Wilson, and a mini-series produced by Nicole Minchin (The Wedding Party, Lowdown).

The projects are:

Features

LAST DANCE, FG Film Productions: Antony I Ginnane, Producer; Terence Hammond, Writer; David Pulbrook, Director. Past and present collide in this fiction feature, when holocaust survivor Ulah Lippmann is held hostage by Sadiq Mohammed, a Palestinian terrorist on the run after a Melbourne bombing.

HAIL, Flood Projects: Michael Cody, Producer; Amiel Courtin-Wilson, Producer/Writer/Director. This hybrid factual/fiction feature explores the darkness that befalls a man who has the love of his life ripped away from him.

TV

WOODLEY, Bucket Tree: Simon Wright and Andy Walker, Producers; Frank Woodley, Writer/Producer. A visual comedy mini-series about a hapless 40-year-old divorcee who shares custody of his eight-year-old daughter and is still in love with his ex-wife.

TWENTYSOMETHING, High Wire Films: Nicole Minchin, Producer; Jess Harris, Writer; Paul Currie, Director. This fiction mini-series looks at what happens when a pair that never went to uni, never had a clear talent and never had the drive to grow up, suddenly get the urge to conform and search for their big break.
MOONSURFERS, Mumbo Jumbo Animation: Cecile Blackman, Producer; Philip Dalkin, Writer; Peter Viska, Director. Combining a unique retro‐futuristic style with hip surf music, this children’s television series follows a group of diverse, interplanetary teens who live on Moonport, a lunar stop‐over for intergalactic travellers.

Documentaries

KAPYONG, Kapyong Pty Ltd: Dennis Smith, Writer/Director. A documentary about a forgotten battle in the forgotten war, in which a small band of Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders in Korea stopped the Chinese Army in its tracks.

MAD AS HELL: THE PETER FINCH STORY, Lowlands Media: Robert de Young, Producer/Writer/Director.This documentary maps the life and work of Australian actor Peter Finch as seen through the eyes of actors, managers, producers, and his family; and the relationship between Australia and Britain in the 1940s and 1950s through the lens of Finch’s career.
UTOPIA GIRLS, Renegade Films: Lucy Maclaren, Producer; Alex West, Writer/Producer; Jasmin Tarasin, Director. Historian Clare Wright investigates how and why Australian women fought successfully to become the first in the world to attain equal political rights.

According to Thwaites, the new appointments will help ACMI engage more strategically with the corporate sector.Thwaites also spoke of ACMI’s “growing reputation” as an element that has helped the institution attract such “well respected and influential figures” to the board:

• Jan Chapman is the producer of  Bright Star, Lantana and The Piano, among others.  Her films have won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, three Academy Awards, Camera d’Or at Cannes and more than 35 AFI Awards.
• Joel Pearlman is the managing director of Roadshow Films, a division of Village Roadshow. He is also in charge of the company’s local production division, and sits on the board of the Melbourne International Film Festival and the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia.
• Michael Wachtel is Asia Pacific chairman of Ernst & Young, a global leader in assurance, tax, transactions and advisory services. He is also a member of the Ernst & Young Global Board.
• Peter Lewinski has conducted an advisory practice over the last 20 years, providing strategic, financial and governance advice to a wide range of public and private companies and government. He is an experienced Government, not-for-profit and private sector company director and has chaired a number of Audit Committees. Prior to commencing his practice, Peter, a qualified Chartered Accountant, worked for investment banks and stockbroking firms in Australia and overseas.

The addition of Chapman, Pearlman, Wachtel and Lewinski follows the departure of board members Annette Blonksi, Peter Doughty, Natalie Miller OAM, and Dan Pearce, whose membership ended on June 30.

Other current ACMI board members are Dion Appel (director, Lifelounge), Rhonda O’Donnell (CEO Rhonda O’Donnell Global Solutions), Sue Rowley (emeritus professor at the University of
Technology, Sydney), Bill Shannon (chair of the Shannon’s Way Group) and Ricci Swart (CEO Ricci Swart Multimedia).

“Hoyts Distribution and we filmmakers see A Heartbeat Away as a multiplex film, ” producer Chris Fitchett told Encore in February.

A Heartbeat Away is theatre director Gale Edwards’ first film. It was shot in Brisbane and financed by Screen Australia, Screen Queensland, Cutting Edge and UK’s Quickfire Films.

Chris Fitchett produces, alongside executive producers Chris Brown (Pictures in Paradise), John Lee (Cutting Edge), Gary Hamilton and James Atherton (Arclight Films).

The story is about an aspiring rock guitarist who is forced to take over the musical direction of his father’s marching band just weeks before a major competition. The cast includes Isabel Lucas, Sebastian Gregory, Williams Zappa, Tammy Macintosh and Colin Friels.

SPAA Fringe will be held at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, on October 22-23.

• Cora Olson, founding partner and producer at Present Pictures (the self-distributed feature film Good Dick, which premiered at Sundance in 2008). Olson will show clips from her new film, The Perfect Family directed by Australian Anne Renton and starring Emily Deschanel (Bones) and Kathleen Turner (Californication). Her presentation will also cover what made Good Dick such a success – from her ‘What Does Good Dick Mean To You’ campaign, to the intensive social networking strategy.
• Peter Broderick will join the conference again, presenting sessions designed to help filmmakers turn their ideas into financially viable productions. Across a series of sessions and workshops, he will help delegates create customised distribution strategies; identify how to maximise revenue from multiple distribution avenues and present ideas to help filmmakers build a fan base to support their current and future work.
• Victoria Treole of Blue Cat Pictures will convene the role-play inspired panel discussion PLAYING SALES. The session has been designed to help filmmakers structure their pitch smartly, and realistically represent their projects to the market. Joined by local distributor Gil Scrine (Gil Scrine Films) and sales agent Michael Favelle (Odin’s Eye Entertainment), they will role-play a number of hypothetical projects to demonstrate the difference between a good, bad and ugly – or ineffective – pitch.
• The SIDEWALK session will see the team behind the feature Blame, including executive producer David Lightfoot, (Producer Wolf Creek, Rogue and Coffin Rock) and producers Ryan Hodgson and  Melissa Kelly, talk about the importance of mentoring and building relationships between executive producers and producers in the film industry. Drawing upon their experience and own personal career pathways, they will reveal how mentoring and relationships culminated in the realisation of Blame.
• Elmo Keep is a writer whose work has been published in titles including Rolling Stone and who has most recently completed work on the second series of Andrew Denton’s Zapruder’s Other Films culture news/satire hybrid show, Hungry Beast for ABC TV. Her transmedia skills have also seen her work across online content development for Zapruder’s Other Films, as well as Events NSW, World’s Funniest Island Comedy Festival and Chugg Entertainment. Highlighting that there is no magic key to producing a viral video and how the internet reflects the strength of an idea, Keep will screen a selection of internet highlights from 2010 during her session, REFRESH THIS PAGE.

More information at http://fringe.spaa.org.au/

McClean confronts the question of how well we are nurturing digital technology developments, challenges the entrenched position of media chiefs and status quo practitioners, and looks ahead to the opportunities and dangers awaiting the makers and custodians of story.

To win, email miguel@focalattractions.com.au and tell us, how have new technologies changed your business?