All articles by Sandy George – Page 54
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The Spanish Apartment is the toast of Sydney
The French/Spanish film The Spanish Apartment, (aka L'auberge Espagnole/ Europudding) directed by Cedric Klapisch and produced by Bruno Levy for Ce Qui Me Meut, won both the PRIX UIP award for Best European Film and the audience award for best feature at the 50th Sydney Film Festival, which closed ...
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Australian film-makers fight for 'culture'
High-profile filmmaking couple Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward, and Australian Film Commission (AFC) chief executive Kim Dalton, met with 45 government backbenchers to argue that 'culture' should be excluded from a free trade agreement with the US. It was yet another attempt to prevent constraints being applied to Australian film ...
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New Zealand still examining tax incentives
Despite New Zealand's Economic Development Minister, Jim Anderton, stating that tax incentives are being seriously considered for the film industry, mixed messages are coming from the Government.According to today's issue of the NZ Herald, Anderton said the country was looking at a number of options including a model based on ...
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Nine films compete for Melbourne's FIPRESCI award
Three films from South Korea, three from Australia, two from Japan and one from China, all by debut directors, are competing for the 52nd Melbourne International Film Festival's FIPRESCI Award, director James Hewison announced today. From South Korea comes Byun Young-Joo's Ardor, Park Chanok's Jealousy Is My Middle Name, and ...
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Australian producers body to launch script market
The Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) is to launch SPAAMart, an initiative aimed at presenting Australia's best scripts to potential production partners. SPAAMart will be part of the annual SPAA conference, which is being held from November 18 to 21 at Melbourne's new Centre for the Moving Image. ...
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Sydney fights to screen banned Ken Park
The Sydney Film Festival has approached both the State and Federal Government in the hope that Ken Park can be shown twice next week as scheduled, despite the Classification Review Board upholding the Office of Film and Literature Classification's refusal to classify the film.Australian film festivals do not ordinarily have ...
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Hopscotch jumps on Fahrenheit 911
Hopscotch has acquired all Australian and New Zealand rights for Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, making it one of the first English language distributors to officially board the new documentary. Moore has already begun to examine the history of anti-American terrorism, trace the business dealings between the Bush and bin Laden ...
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Dendy, Rialto empty their wallets at Cannes
Australia's Dendy Films picked up six titles while at Cannes including two from Renaissance, director John Curran's We Don't Live Here Anymore, starring the homegrown Naomi Watts alongside Laura Dern, and The Mother, another collaboration between Notting Hill director Roger Michell and controversial writer Hanif Kureshi. Curran's first film, Praise, ...
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Veteran producer appointed to stimulate Oz industry
Producer Ross Dimsey has been appointed general manager of industry development and investment at Film Victoria, one of Australia's biggest State Government film assistance agencies. He is a past president of the Screen Production Association of Australia and is a former director of Queensland's version of Film Victoria. His credits ...
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Trish Lake getting busy in Australia
With buzz building back home on her first credit, the unfinished Gettin' Square, Queensland-based producer Trish Lake is at Cannes with three projects. The most advanced is The Digger, which is being written by the mother/son/stepfather team of Jan Bradnam, Ashley Bradnam and Terry McCann.Babe director and co-writer Chris Noonan ...
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Australia's development agency and archives to merge
The film industry is generally perplexed by last night's surprise news that the Australian Government has decided to merge the Australian FilmCommission (AFC), which has the principal role of developing Australian films and film-makers, and Screensound, the organisation which collects and preserves the country's audiovisual heritage.Legislation will have to be ...
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Australia's Rialto swoops on Broken Wings
On the eve of the Cannes Film Festival, Rialto Entertainment has bought Australian and New Zealand rights for Broken Wings from Pathe. The film was Israel's best foreign film contender at this year's Academy Awards. Rialto principal Kelly Rogers describes the film, which he saw for the first time at ...
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Australia's FFC chief outlines new funding model
Six weeks into his new role as chief executive of Australia's Film Finance Corporation (FFC), Brian Rosen has called on local producers to make better use of his organisation's funds and to vary the ways they finance films. He also wants them to tell bigger stories that will attract the ...
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Dark Lady Of DNA could be follow-up film to Whale Rider
New Zealand's South Pacific Pictures (SPP) is developing a feature based on the book by Brenda Maddox about the life of Rosalind Franklin, whose work was essential to the discovery of DNA. The book, which is titled Rosalind Franklin, The Dark Lady of DNA, discusses how Franklin got no recognition ...
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Palace backs next film by Japanese Story trio
Palace Films has committed to the Australian release of comedy/drama Driving Back To Dubbo from the Melbourne-based team behind this year's Un Certain Regard entrant Japanese Story.It will be the third film from director Sue Brooks, writer Alison Tilson and producer Sue Maslin. The debut film for all three ...
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Australia's Imagine to release Undead
Australia's distribution newcomer Imagine Entertainment has picked up local rights to Undead, the horror film produced, directed and written by Queensland-based brothers Peter and Michael Spierig. Imagine principal John Vale will release the film after it has shown at all three east coast festivals, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The film ...
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Hating Alison Ashley gets greenlight
Australia's Film Finance Corporation board yesterday agreed to finance the feature Hating Alison Ashley to be directed by Rod Hardy from a script by Christine Madafferi. The teen comedy is an adaptation of Robin Klein's award-winning coming-of-age novel of the same name.Film Victoria is also contributing funding and a significant ...
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Local comedy to open 50th Sydney Film Festival
The Honourable Wally Norman, a film that continues Australia's long comedy tradition of the underdog succeeding against all odds, is the opening night film of the 50th Sydney Film Festival. Kevin Harrington (The Dish) is in the lead role of Wally, who is accidentally nominated to run for Federal Parliament.The ...
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Icon grabs worldwide rights to Jindabyne
Icon Entertainment International has jumped aboard Jindabyne, the next film by director Ray Lawrence, who gave Australia its biggest commercial and critical hit of 2001 with Lantana. It is the first time the company has grabbed all worldwide sales rights to an Australian film since its local distribution arm opened ...
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Mushroom options NZ gang tale Stonedogs
Sydney-based Mushroom Pictures has announced that it has optioned Craig Marriner's debut novel Stonedogs, which deals with gang and drug culture in a city resembling the author's home town of Rotorua in New Zealand.The novel was the controversial winner of the Deutz Medal for Fiction at NZ's 2002 Montana Book ...