The Wedding Party to open MIFF
Amanda Jane’s comedy The Wedding Party (previously known as Kin) will open this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival.
“We had the title in the back of our minds for a long time, as an alternative title. We decided to change it because the film is entertaining, fun, and we wanted a title that suited those aspects more. It’s full of music, a fantastic cast and great comic actors,” director Amanda Jane told Encore.
Written by Christine Bartlett and produced by Nicole Minchin (ABC TV’s Lowdown), The Wedding Party received support from the MIFF Premiere Fund.
The film is set for distribution by Arkles Entertainment. When the company shut down its New Zealand operation in early March, MD John Davies told Encore that “Arkles Australia remains and goes on, and The Wedding Party is still contracted with us. We are in the market for a partner on it”. Encore understands negotiations are still taking place.
Isabel Lucas plays Ana Petrov, a beautiful young woman who flees Russia, desperate to stay in Australia with the man she loves. It’s a story about the Thompsons, a family whose individual love lives range from deviant to delicious to downright desperate. The youngest son, Steve (Josh Lawson), agrees to marry Ana for cash, but when his plans for a secret registry affair are discovered by his family, Steve finds himself at the centre of the world’s most farcical wedding.
Running from July 22 – August 8, the 2010 Melbourne International Film Festival will be the 59th edition and the last for director Richard Moore, who will be relocating to Queensland in late August to become head of screen culture at Screen Queensland.
Moore told Encore that part of his plans is to bring together the Brisbane Film Festival – which will now take place in November – and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards – which were launched in 2007 and meant to coincide with the SPAA Conference on the Gold Coast, until the producers’ event moved to Sydney in 2009.
