‘Australian’, only when it’s convenient?
Screen Australia’s analysis of 2009 box office data considered the Melbourne-shot Knowing (and its healthy contribution of $7.6m to the reported $54.8m total) as an Australian film, even though director Alex Proyas openly complained about it not being eligible for the producer offset. It is unclear if it eventually received it. So, is it an Australian project, or not?
A Summit Entertainment production, Knowing is not an official co-production. It was shot in Victoria, and a number of Australian companies worked on its post-production. But Proyas himself told me last March: “Sadly, I regret bringing the production of Knowing to Australia […] we genuinely thought that we would qualify for the 40 percent producer offset, because it’s essentially an all-Australian production. Still to this day, I’m really upset that we were not able to qualify for that rebate, and I don’t understand why.”
According to Proyas, the film would end up receiving the 15 percent location offset, available to international productions. I don’t understand why then, Screen Australia thinks it’s an Australian film.
I contacted the Producer Offset manager, Alex Sangston, to ask if the agency’s decision had been reviewed and perhaps Knowing had indeed received the PO, but due to tax regulations he was unable to comment.
I then contacted Screen Australia as I believed it was important that they clarified why Knowing was considered an Australian film for reporting purposes. This was their response.
Even after the explanation, and until someone says on the record that Knowing received the producer rebate, it still feels to me that the inclusion of Knowing significantly helped Screen Australia to report a ‘healthier’ share for Australian films. Without Knowing, it would be $47.2, or 4.33 percent, not such a ‘wow’ figure as 5 percent.
What do you think about this Knowing situation? How should we define what an Australian film is when it comes to calculating our share of the box office? We got one step closer to building a healthy box office share last year with a number of well-received films, but these concepts need to be redefined, or we risk the possibility of not knowing the truth of our industry’s box office performance.
Miguel Gonzalez
Note from the Editor: Three days after the publication of this opinon piece, director Alex Proyas confirmed that Knowing did receive the Producer Offset and coud therefore qualify as an Australian film, but this fact was not made public when the original decision was reviewed.
We wonder why the Knowing team didn’t think it would be relevant to inform the public that they had ultimately received the rebate, when they were so open to discussing the issue at the time it seemed they would not get it?
