$4.2m from NSW for 23 projects
The NSW Government has used almost a quarter of its recently announced $25m budget for the film industry to fund five features, four TV series, one telemovie, 12 docos and one cross-platform project.
The projects include Mei Mei, an Australia/China co-production starring Guy Pearce, and The Hunter, with American actor Willem Dafoe.
The biggest winner is Joanna Werner’s children’s drama Dance Academy, with $500,000 towards production of season two.
Vincent Sheehan’s production The Hunter will be shot in Tasmania and China, with a majority of crew from NSW and post-production also taking place in this state – it will receive $400,000 from the Government.
The production expenditure of these projects is expected to reach $62m.
These are the projects receiving funds from the NSW Government in this round:
Features
MEI-MEI
- Production Company: Portal Pictures
- Finance: $200,000
- Writers: Martin Edmond, Pauline Chan, Philip Dalkin.
- Producers: Penny Carl-Nelson, Pauline Chan, Lesley Stevens, Zhijiang Lui
- Director: Pauline Chan
- Synopsis: “Sometimes the past comes back to thank you”. Chinese orphan Mei Mei (16) arrives in Sydney to find her Australian sponsor Dean Randall (40) behind bars for manslaughter. Mismatched and disconnected, the unlikely duo help each other to grasp their chance at life over a roller-coaster ride of 3 weeks.
THE HUNTER
- Production Company: Porchlight Films
- Finance: $400,000
- Writer: Alice Addison
- Producer: Vincent Sheehan
- Director: Daniel Nettheim
- Synopsis: One man’s search for the last Tasmanian Tiger becomes a deeper journey into the core of his own existence. Starring high-profile international actor, Willem Dafoe. Based on the acclaimed novel, The Hunter, by Julia Leigh.
SAY NOTHING
- Production Company: Vivid Films
- Finance: $310,000
- Writers: Kieran Darcy-Smith, Felicity Price
- Producer: Angie Fielder
- Director: Kieran Darcy-Smith
- Synopsis: Four friends lose themselves in a carefree South East Asian holiday. Only three come back. Who amongst them knows what happened on that fateful night when they were dancing under a full moon in Cambodia?
LORE
- Production Company: Porchlight Films
- Finance: $275,000
- Writers: Cate Shortland, Robin Mukherjees
- Producers: Liz Watts, Paul Walsh, Karsten Stoter, Gabriele Kranzelbinder
- Director: Cate Shortland
- Synopsis: Spring 1945 and the German resistance collapses. As the Allied forces sweep across the Motherland, five children embark on a journey which will challenge every notion we have of family, love and friendship.
Television series
DANCE ACADEMY – SERIES 2
- Production Company: Werner Film Productions
- Finance: $500,000
- Writers: Samantha Strauss, Liz Doran, Greg Waters and Sam Carrol confirmed
- Producer: Joanna Werner
- Line Producer: Ally Henville
- Directors: Cherie Nowlan confirmed
- Broadcaster: ABC
- Synopsis: Tara returns to the Academy with her sights set firmly on representing the country at the world’s most prestigious ballet competition. But she should be more focused on just surviving second year where, having climbed to the top over the last twelve months – in dance, life and love – she now has a very long way to fall.
CLEO
- Production Company:
- Finance: $300,000
- Writer: Christopher Lee
- Producers: John Edwards, Imogen Banks
- Director: Emma Freeman
- Broadcaster: ABC
- Synopsis: The Whitlams era as seen through the eyes of Cleo magazine and its young Editor, Ita Buttrose.
THE STRAITS
- Production Company: Pixa House
- Finance: $200,000
- Writers: Nick Parsons, Blake Ayshford, Jamie Browne, Louis Nowra
- Producers: Helen Panckhurst, Penny Chapman
- Director: Peter Andrikidis
- Synopsis: The Straits is an exotic, darkly humorous crime drama. It follows the fortunes of a family who happen to be on the wrong side of the law. Their turf is Far North Queensland and the complex network of islands that form Australia’s Northern frontier: the Torres Straits.
Telemovie
BLOOD BROTHER
- Production Company: Playmaker Media
- Finance: $250,000
- Writer: John Misto
- Producers: David Taylor, David Maher
- Broadcaster: Nine Network
- Synopsis: Jeffrey Gilham had a perfect life. He lived on a river in the heart of Sydney’s affluent Shire district. He was handsome, educated, a champion athlete, and a model son from a perfect family. So why, on a freezing morning in 1993 did this model son butcher his parents and brother? Or did he?
Documentaries
THE TALL MAN
- Production Company: Blackfella Films
- Finance: $80,000
- Writer: Tony Krawitz
- Producer: Darren Dale
- Executive Producer: Rachel Perkins
- Director: Tony Krawitz
- Synopsis: On 19 Nov 2004 an Aboriginal man swore at a policeman and 45 minutes later lay dead in a cell. This is the story of that event and its aftermath.
DICK SMITH’S POPULATION PUZZLE
- Production Company: Population Productions
- Finance: $60,000
- Writer: Simon Nasht
- Producers: Anna Cater, Simon Nasht
- Director: Simon Nasht
- Synopsis: The film follows Dick Smith’s six-month campaign against rapid population growth. The unashamedly polemical film tests the propositions, one by one, put forward in favour of a Big Australia. Can this popular entrepreneur persuade the nation to change its mind?
PAUL COX – A LIFE
- Production Company: Frontline Films
- Finance: $40,000
- Writer: David Bradbury
- Producer: David Bradbury
- Executive Producer: Jeni McMahon
- Director: David Bradbury
- Synopsis: Auteur filmmaker Paul Cox contemplates his own mortality and his life’s work as he waits for a life saving liver transplant.
FOOTBALL UNITED
- Production Company: North One TV Australia
- Finance: $20,000
- Writers: Dan Goldberg, George Negus
- Producer: Dan Goldberg
- Director: Adam Kay
- Synopsis:
- War and political turmoil tore the lives of eight refugee kids apart, causing them to flee to Australia. Football United is giving them the chance to dream of a better life. This is the powerful story of renewed hope, as the kids compete for Australia at the Football for Hope Festival in South Africa.
MACQUARIE: THE FATHER OF AUSTRALIA
- Production Company: Intomedia
- Media contact: Georgie Klug 9228 5900 / 0427 066 616
- Finance: $30,000
- Writers: Stuart Scowcroft, Lez Wilson
- Producers: Stuart Scowcroft, Seona Robertson
- Director: Les Wilson
- Synopsis: The story of Lachlan Macquarie and his wife Elizabeth who arrived in Sydney when it was goal and left it ten years later, a colony on the way to becoming a nation. He was called the Father of Australia.
ROCKET COMPULSION
- Production Company: Firelight Production
- Finance: $50,000
- Writer: Simon Nasht
- Producers: Marcus Gillezeau, Ellenor Cox
- Director: Gregory Read
- Synopsis: Tenacious Aussie jet pilot David Mayman grasps for his childhood dream to build and fly his own rocket belt.
THE GRAMMAR OF HAPPINESS
- Production Company: Essential Media and Entertainment
- Finance: $55,000
- Producer: Chris Hilton
- Executive Producer: Chris Hilton
- Directors: Randall Wood, Chris Thorburn
- Synopsis: Amongst perhaps the only truly happy people on earth, maverick linguist Daniel Everett sets out to discover if the language we speak defines the way we think.
MT (WORKING TITLE)
- Production Company: Evershine
- Finance: $60,000
- Writer: Hugh Piper
- Producer: Helen Barrow
- Director: Hugh Piper
- Synopsis: An observational documentary about print journalism, freedom of speech and publishing in SE Asia.
COOL SCHOOL
- Production Company: Angels Television
- Finance: $25,000
- Writer: Gregory Miller, Liz Courtney
- Producer: Gregory Miller, Liz Courtney
- Director: Gregory Miller, Liz Courtney
- Synopsis: The coolest school on the Planet is about to open in Antarctica. Cool School is an event based feature documentary filmed in Antarctica. It is a chance to explore sustainable development and climate change within a travel/adventure format in one of the places most affected by climate change.
HARDLINERS
- Production Company: Cordell Jigsaw Productions
- Finance: $110,000
- Producers: Steve Bibb, Nick Murray
- Synopsis: Hardliners follows a remarkable group of Australian long-line fishermen chasing the lucrative Southern Blue Fin Tuna in the treacherous waters off the Australian east coast. Dodging storms, sharks, and container ships, these men provide a fascinating insight into human endurance and bravery. But what price do they pay?
WIDE OPEN ROAD
- Production Company: Bombora Film and Music Co.
- Finance: $101,539
- Writers: Paul Clarke, Nick Carrol with Graeme Davison
- Producer: Paul Clarke
- Executive Producer: Penny Robins
- Director: Paul Clarke
- Synopsis: An Australian social history of the Twentieth Century- viewed through the windscreen of the cars that we so cherished.
SEX: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY
- Production Company: Matchbox Pictures
- Finance: $135,000
- Writer: Mark O’Toole
- Producer: Michaela Perske
- Executive Producer: Penny Chapman
- Broadcaster: SBS
- Synopsis: Fifty years since the pill went on sale in Australia, Julia Zemiro presents a series that takes an enlightening and humorous look at sex in the modern age.
Cross-platform
THE GRADUAL DEMISE OF PHILLIPA FINCH
- Production Company: Hopscotch Productions
- Finance: $35,000
- Writer: Emma Magenta
- Producer: Rachel Okine
- Director: Emma Magenta
- Media contact: Georgie Klug 9228 5900 / 0427 066 616
- Synopsis: The Gradual Demise of Phillipa Finch is a cross-platform 2D animated project incorporating interactive web components, which brings acclaimed Australian artist Emma Magenta’s newest character, Phillipa Finch to life.
