All articles by Sandy George – Page 31
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Features
Australia - Ward and peace
The Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) last week announced its intention to throw its weight behind the directorial debut of a familiar name in the acting world.Rachel Ward was a 1980s icon, starring in films such as Against All Odds, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and How To Get Ahead ...
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Australia: inward production
Australia regularly hosts major studio shoots, but the production services industry is vulnerable to big fluctuations. While 2004/05 saw $196.2m in inward investment, the following 12 months saw a drop of to $18.6m.Ausfilm is funded by the national government, film service companies and state film agencies. It is pressing to ...
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First co-production between Israel and Australia gets underway
Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn and Claudia Karvan have joined Geoffrey Rush and Anthony LaPaglia as the voice cast for the animated film $9.99, the first co-production between Israel and Australia. The project has just started shooting in Sydney. New York-based director Tatia Rosenthal co-wrote the film with Israeli writer Etgar ...
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Omnilab moves into distribution and sales for Australian features
Two of the four features that have just received funding from Film Finance Corporation Australia now see the Omnilab Media Group take local distribution and international sales rights, in partnership with others. Omnilab is Australia 's largest privately owned group of service companies and has been promising to get into ...
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Australia's Omnilab boards two FFC-backed projects
Two of the four features that have just received funding from Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) see the Omnilab Media Group take local distribution and international sales rights, in partnership with others. Omnilab is Australia's largest privately-owned group of service companies and has been promising to enter Australian feature film ...
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Still Life takes first Adelaide best film award
Still Life, by Chinese director Jia Zhang Ke, has won $25,000 for best film at the Adelaide Film Festival's inaugural competition. The film is a meditation on the transformation of China, using the dams being built on the Yangtze River as its setting. Last year it won the Golden Lion ...
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Lionsgate Australia makes a takeover bid for Magna Pacific
The newly launched Lionsgate Australia has finally confirmed that it is hoping to get a quick leg-up into the Australian market by taking over Magna Pacific, the biggest independent DVD distributor in the country. Macquarie Private Portfolio Management Limited, the largest institutional shareholder in Magna Pacific, yesterday indicated that it ...
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AFC selects eight projects for low-budget development lab
Chopper producer Michele Bennett and Robyn Kershaw, whose credits include Looking For Alibrandi, are among the eight teams that have projects selected by the Australian Film Commission's (AFC) development laboratory for low-budget films. The series of workshops aim to simultaneously develop a film's script, the director's vision and the production ...
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Lionsgate to open Aus/NZ distribution outfit
After many rumours that it was seeking to buy an existing Australian distributor, US-based producer-distributor Lionsgate has confirmed that it is establishing its own operation to cover Australia and New Zealand. ' Australia is a key territory and to not be the person selling your own content is crazy,' said ...
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Cowan to head Adelaide Film Festival jury
Adelaide Film Festival director Katrina Sedgwick today named the 12 films in its inaugural competition and announced that Toronto International Film Festival director Noah Cowan is president of the jury. She also revealed that Adelaide filmmaker Rolf de Heer will be presented with the 2007 Don Dunstan Award in recognition ...
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Adelaide festival to open with Rowland's Lucky Miles
Michael James Rowland's almost completed debut film Lucky Miles is to open the Adelaide Film Festival on Feb 22 while Rolf de Heer's Dr Plonk is to close the event on March 4. Festival director Katrina Sedgwick also announced today that Australia's newest capital city film festival will this year ...
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Arclight sets up Australian production office with US to follow
Sales agent Arclight Films has appointed former Instinct Entertainment producer Nigel Odell to set up a Melbourne-based office to produce and co-finance Australian films. It will establish a US production office in the near future under Harrison Kordestani, who is already based there. Arclight wants to work with bankable Australian ...
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Australia 's 2006 box-office grosses second highest on record
Australia's gross box office was $675.5m (A$866.609m) last year, a rise of 6% over 2005 and the second-highest year on record according to the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia (MPDAA). The best year to date for earnings was 2004 when $707.2m (A$907.2) was spent on cinema tickets. This figure ...
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Happy Feet breaks Aussie opening record for local film
Most cinemagoers probablydon't know Happy Feet is Australian,but the animated musical set in Antarctica hasbroken the record for the biggest opening week by an Australian film.Distributor Roadshowreported that the film has entered the history books with a gross of $9.66m(A$12.128m) between and including Boxing Day (Dec 26) and New Year's ...
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AFC continues support for low-budget pictures
Two low-budget thrillers, Cactus and Cedar Boys, have received production funding from the AustralianFilm Commission (AFC), while a third film, TheBullet Boy, was promised money for post-production.Writer/director JasmineYuen-Carrucan, producer Paul Sullivan and executive producer Bryan Brown, whois best known internationally as an actor, are behind Cactus. The film tells the ...
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Chambers takes CEO role with Australian state film agency
Tania Chambers is to become the chief executive of the News South Wales Film and Television Office (FTO), the government film agency in the Australian state that hosts the most production.She will relocate to the east coast from the opposite side of the country once she has stepped down from ...
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FFC greenlights Scott Hicks' The Boys Are Back In Town
Film Finance CorporationAustralia (FFC) has given three features a green light, including director ScottHicks' comic drama The Boys Are Back InTown, his first film back in Australia since he made Shine over 10 years ago.The other films that werefinanced are Mary & Max, thefirst feature from animator Adam Elliot who ...
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AFC outlines plans for digital cinema network
The Australian FilmCommission (AFC), which has been planning a digital cinema network in regional Australia for quite some time, has at last gone public withits plans. Eight independently-ownedregional cinemas - one in each state and two in New South Wales - will receivedigital equipment on loan and in exchange will ...
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Ten Canoes sweeps the board at AFI Awards
Auteur director Rolf deHeer's Ten Canoes, which he producedwith Julie Ryan, was crowned best film at the Australian Film Institute Awardson Thursday night (Dec 7) in Melbourne.While its untrainedindigenous cast failed to take home any acting awards, it won six of the 10categories for behind-the-camera roles including best screenplay for ...
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Kenny takes top film prize at IF Awards
Hit comedy Kenny took home four Inside Film Awards, including best film and best script, while Ten Canoes and Suburban Mayhem took home three each. Ten Canoes, the first Australian feature to be made entirely in the indigenous language, earned Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr best director, and Crusoe ...