Screen Australia announces $5.4m slate
Screen Australia is to spend $5.4 on supporting six feature films, including a documentary, a 3D animation and a mystery which will see Nicole Kidman return home to Australia for filming.
Screen Australia’s chief executive Ruth Harley said: “The feature slate announced today includes exciting projects from some of Australia’s most loved and acclaimed directors such as Gillian Armstrong and Paul Cox, as well as projects from rising directorial talents such as Mark Grental and Kim Farrant.”
The films:
BACKYARD ASHES
More boring drama and bogan comedies from Australian cinema. Is there any difference to Last Cab To Darwin and Force of Destiny? They sound pretty much the same concept. Seems like a waste of funding. Why not diversify Australian cinema? An action film. A fantasy. Sci-fi. Something different. Something that’s not painfully Australian.
Have got to agree with you Bem. This is pretty dreary stuff. I can’t see an audience paying to see these movies. Screen Australia’s public relations department has gone very quiet this year as Australian films have done little at the box office. Take The Great Gatsby out of the result (which is defined as “Australian” for pretty dubious tax reasons) and the result is miserable. But nothing wrong with “painfully Australian” if you have a good cinema idea that offers a real chance to break out. These ideas just seem dull.
So let’s see Ruth, what have you got coming up? A film about backyard cricket? Yep interesting. A film about liver cancer? Yep that’s good. A film about a dickhead who drives to Darwin and dies. Yep understand the drama in that. A film about a bee with a big personality. Unusual. And a story with the usual suspects Kidman Pearce et al about two dickhead teenagers who disappear in the desert. A kinda Burke and Wills remake for gen Y. What a slate! Full of commercial upside and cultural correctness. Ruth it just gets better and better for Australian film!
Thank god we have a Kiwi running the joint cos we don’t know what’s good for us.
They should have combined their creative talents to make just one big film?!
The story goes like this:
A backyard cricketer with a big personality gets liver cancer and while flying to Darwin to die or just bee on her own emergently individualistic terms Maya (that’s her name) mysteriously disappears in the desert so that Nicole Kidman and Guy Pearce have to come home from Los Angeles and go looking for her.
Now that’s a film.