All articles by Sandy George – Page 34
-
News
Buena Vista picks up Oz rights to Samoan Wedding
Buena Vista Internationalhas picked up Australian rights to feel-good New Zealand comedy SamoanWedding (aka Sione's Wedding) andwill release it in mid-July.Director Chris Graham'sdebut film grossed $2m (NZ$3.14m) for Sony in its first five weeks on homesoil. Putting aside US-funded local blockbusters such as the Lord Of The Rings trilogy and ...
-
News
FFC Australia backs diverse slate of new projects
Film Finance Corporation Australia has provisionallypromised funding to three features, including writer-director Christina Andreef's adaptation of the novel Shiver, one of 18 projects in Cannes' scriptdevelopment program L'Atelier.The other two dramas are Two Fists One Heart, to be directed by NewYork-based Australian John Polson (Swimfan, Hide and Seek),and the German-Australian-Chinese ...
-
News
Ten Canoes to open Sydney Film Festival
Un Certain Regard Cannes entrant Rolf de Heer's TenCanoes is to open the 53rd Sydney Film Festival (SFF) on June 9."We are absolutely thrilled to have such an exciting anddistinctively Australian film open the festival," said SFF artistic directorLynden Barber in the statement."It is fitting that such a beautifully poetic ...
-
News
Melbourne film festival to close with Mayhem
Black comedy Suburban Mayhem, starring Emily Barclay,will close the 55th Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) on August 13. Director Paul Goldman (Australian Rules, The Night They Called It A Day) said the festival is seen as bothan audience-friendly and cutting edge event and is the perfect place to launchthe film: ...
-
News
Arclight, Roadshow board Gray debut
International sales agentArclight Films and Australian distributor Roadshow have signed on to When She Gets There, the debut featurefrom writer-director Richard Gray.Cassandra McGrath, whosecredits include Wolf Creek, has been lined up to star in the $2.93m (A$4m) film,which is scheduled to start shooting at the end of July. Gray is ...
-
News
Becker appoints Keen as CEO; Bradley to relocate to LA
Tim Keen has beenappointed as the new CEO of Becker Group Limited, the film exhibition,distribution, production and sales company. In an unrelated move, thehead of sales company Becker Films International, Reiko Bradley, will soonrelocate from Sydney to Los Angeles. Bradley is a shareholderand made the reverse move when she helped ...
-
News
Chris Graham's horror film The Ferryman goes into production
Horror film, The Ferryman, a United Kingdom/New Zealand co-production to star the Emmy-nominated John Rhys Davies and Silver Bear winner Kerry Fox, goes into production March 31.The film shoots in Auckland and Waiheke Island and follows a group of twenty-something-year-olds as they charter a boat into the South Pacific, intending ...
-
News
Film Finance Corporation Australia to fund two new features
Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) today gavefinal approval on its investments in the animated feature $9.99 and a feature-length documentary investigating discreditedauthor Norma Khouri.The stop-motion animation for adults, $9.99, is the first officialbig-screen co-production between Australian and Israel.Israeli director Tatia Rosenthal wrote the scriptwith Etgar Keret and hasbeen working with ...
-
News
FFC to keep funding requirements intact
Film Finance CorporationAustralia (FFC) chief executive Brian Rosen has confirmed that the funding bodyhas backed off from a proposal to ask for more money from its feature filminvestment partners.As it always does at thistime of year, the FFC has been conducting open meetings with Australian filmmakersand liaising with key industry ...
-
News
Fraser's No. 2 benefits from festival exposure
New Zealand Film has signedoff on several sales on Toa Fraser's No.2 which won the audience award for drama in the World Cinema section atSundance and later screened in Berlin. The film has been sold to Spain (Avalon), Scandinavia (CCV), Switzerland (Xenith), Greece (Prooptiki), Thailand (Pacific Entertainment) and Argentina (Telexcel). ...
-
News
Feature debut for Unjoo Moon with adaptation of children's book
Unjoo Moon is to direct an adaptation of children's book The Wicked, Wicked Ladies In The HauntedHouse. She directed short film, Sorrow'sChild in 1998 and this will be her feature debut. It also looks likely to bethe next project for Moon's cinematographer husband, DionBeebe who won an Oscar for Memoirs ...
-
News
Director Samantha Lang's project accepted into Aurora
Director Samantha Lang'sfourth feature may well be The RosevilleStory, following its acceptance into Aurora, a high-profile script hothouse run by the NewSouth Wales Film and Television Office (FTO). Lang made Cannes competition title The Well and the Monkey's Mask in Australia, and The Idolin France. Her actor/director husbandJeremy Sims is ...
-
News
James Hewison to head up the Australian Film Institute
James Hewison will move on to be chiefexecutive of the Australian Film Institute (AFI) in August once he wraps hisfifth Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). He will be the third AFI chief in just over a year and replaces GeoffreyWilliams who left in January despite revitalising the 2005 AFI Awards ...
-
News
Flood of Australian film shoot without FFC funds
Film-maker Alkinos Tsilimidos is soon tolock on his fourth feature, the crime thriller Em 4 Jay. In keeping with his focus on social realist cinema - andhis disinterest in "safe, middle-class" stories - it follows two people whoturn to armed robbery to sustain their smack habit.Keeping budgets low allowshim to ...
-
News
New Zealand to keep production rebates in place
New Zealand's economic development minister Trevor Mallard hasannounced that a review of the "Large Budget Screen Production Grant"initiative has been concluded and the scheme will remain in place. Mallard also announced thatthe New Zealandgovernment has paid expenditure rebates of $16.8m (NZ$25.2m) to King Kong and $10.6m (NZ$15.9m) to The ...
-
News
Tropfest feature programme singles out September
September,from writer/director Peter Carstairs, will be the first project to emerge from Tropfestand the Movie Network's new feature programme, which each year gives $743,000(A$1m) to the creator of a short film to make a feature.The debut feature is about afriendship between two teenage boys - one white Australian, the otherAboriginal ...
-
News
Karl Urban to star in Robert Sarkies' untitled feature
Karl Urban, who played Eomer in The Lord Of TheRings and Matt Damon's nemesis in TheBourne Supremacy, takes one of the lead roles in director Robert Sarkies' untitled feature now in production.Tim White, who is producing alongside Steven O'Meagher, told ScreenDaily.comthey experienced some of the wildest weather he had ever ...
-
News
Fierberg lines up stellar cast for Cassavetes debut
Parker Posey, Gena Rowlandsand Jeanne Moreau are attached to star in actress Zoe Cassavetes' firstfeature as director, Broken English, which isexpected to go into production in the next few months.The film, about a mid-30swoman who is becoming debilitated by a lack of luck in love, is produced by NewYork-based Vox3 ...
-
News
World's Fastest Indian races to Kiwi record
TheWorld's Fastest Indian has become the mostsuccessful New Zealand story at local cinemas and it may inch into the top 10hits of any nationality.Asof Sunday February 19, New Zealanders had spent $4,458,405 (NZ$6,694,808) tosee Anthony Hopkins play Burt Munro, who traveled from their country to Utah inthe 1960s and set ...
-
News
Eight films selected for Australia's IndiVision Project Lab
Moving South, aroad movie from director Kate Woods and producer Robyn Kershaw, who last teamedup on the local hit Looking For Alibrandi, is one of eightfilms to be developed through the second IndiVisionProject Lab.The Australian Film Commission (AFC)released the names of those chosen for the week-long low-budget initiative introduced last ...