Tripartite Nazi sci-fi comedy to have Australian flavour
New Holland Pictures producer Cathy Overett says that even though the company joined its German/Finnish Iron Sky partners recently, the sci fi project will still have a strong Australian component.
“We are pulling together the creative team here in Australia – a number of heads of department and also proposed cast. Our partners have just been in Australia for 10 days and have met with all the creatives we’ve proposed and are very happy with the team,” Overett told Encore.
Overett and the creative team behind Iron Sky had a booth at last weekend’s Supanova pop culture expo in Sydney, where the producers said the project “stirred up great interest from the general public”.
Iron Sky takes place in the year 2018, when the Nazis, who fled the Earth to the dark side of the Moon in 1945, return to claim the Earth.
The project was originally conceived and developed as a Finnish-German project, produced by Tero Kaukomaa (Blind Spot Pictures), Samuli Torssonen (Energia Productions) and Oliver Damian (27 Films Production). Australian/New Zealand company New Holland Pictures recently joined the project, with an official announcement made during last month’s Cannes Film Festival.
“They still had a sizeable gap in their financing. By bringing us in as an Australian partner with access to the Producer Offset and Screen Queensland investment, we have essentially closed the gap,” explained Overett.
The film also has financial support from the Finnish Film Foundation, the German Film Fund (DFFF) and Eurimage.
“Whilst we only officially agreed to work together on this project in Cannes a few weeks ago, we have been in discussions since February,” said the producer. “At that stage, they had two versions of the script and we had significant input on which we thought were the best parts of each and how we felt it should go forward into the definitive version. There have been two new drafts since then, and we have equal creative input with our two partners.”
Iron Sky will be an official German/Australian co-production.
“For us, it is an official German/Australian co-production. It will also be an official German/Finnish co-production under the European convention. As such, Australia considers the Finnish elements to be German,” explained Overett.
Overett revealed that the Australian component will contribute 20-25 percent of the budget, in addition to cast and crew. Most of the locations will be filmed in Frankfurt, while studio work will be done at the Warner Roadshow studios on the Gold Coast.
“There may also be two location days in Australia, picking up a couple of things we haven’t been able to find in Germany,” said Overett.
Overett expects that 25-30 percent of the €6.5m budget will be spent in Australia.
Iron Sky is due to start filming in Germany in October 2010, with filming in Australia to follow in November.
