Film-maker Tony Krawitz heads to US as part of Directors’ Guild of America’s Finders Series
Director Tony Krawitz will travel to the US on behalf of the Australian Directors’ Guild to present his documentary The Tall Man to the Directors’ Guild of America as part of the US guild’s Finders Series. The Finders Series looks to spotlight undistributed independent feature films from guild directors.
The announcement:
The Australian Director’s Guild is taking director Tony Krawitz and his award-winning documentary THE TALL MAN to Los Angeles and New York next week as part of the Directors Guild Of America’s (DGA) Finders Series.
The Directors Finder Series is a DGA initiative to spotlight undistributed independent feature films directed by Guild members. After its original inception in the USA, the series was expanded to also include International Association of English Speaking Directors Organizations (IAESDO) members’ work as well (including USA, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom and Canada).
The Australian Directors’ Guild (ADG) will screen THE TALL MAN in Los Angeles on Friday 26th October at the DGA theatre and in New York on Friday 2nd November at the DGA Theatre. Tony Krawtiz will attend both screenings.
THE TALL MAN is the story of Palm Island, the tropical paradise where one morning Cameron Doomadgee swore at a policeman and forty-five minutes later lay dead in a watch-house cell. This is the story of that policeman, the tall enigmatic Christopher Hurley who chose to work in some of the toughest and wildest places in Australia, and of the struggle to bring him to trial. The Tall Man is a story in luminous detail of two worlds clashing – and a haunting moral puzzle that no viewer will forget.
The last Australian film to win the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Finders Awards was Kriv Stenders’ Boxing Day in 2007.
“Capturing the attention of the North American market is an aspiration most filmmakers share but it can be incredibly difficult to achieve that cut-through. The Finders series guarantees that the winning filmmaker will get to show their film to and meet with some of the most important players in the US screen industry,” said Kingston Anderson, General Manager of the ADG.
Kriv Stenders said: “Winning the DGA Finders Award has been the single most defining Award I have received in my career so far. It set in motion an incredible chain reaction of contacts and opportunities that are still playing out for me today. The whole experience was invaluable and allowed me the chance to meet LA based managers, producers and agents. In fact, one of these meetings led directly to the chance for me to direct Red Dog, an opportunity I will always be truly grateful for.”
After each screening the DGA will host a Q & A with Tony Krawitz. In Los Angeles this is being hosted by the Academy Award Winning Australian documentary director Eva Orner. In New York the Q & A will be hosted by Professor Paul Thompson from New York University.
Tony Krawitz’a first dramatic feature film DEAD EUROPE will be released in Australia on November 15 after screening In Competition at the Cockatoo Island Film Festival in Sydney. DEAD EUROPE was also In Competition at the 2012 Sydney Film Festival and screened last week at the London Film Festival.
The US screenings of THE TALL MAN have been made possible through the generous support of the DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA, THE WALKELEY AWARDS, AUSFILM and SCREEN AUSTRALIA.
Source: Australian Director’s Guild press release
