News

Members of the Australian Directors’ Guild have had the chance to hear from some of the country’s most established filmmakers over the past five months as part of the Adg-40 ‘First-Hand’ sessions.

Consisting of 40 weekly one-hour webinars fronted by industry mentors, the initiative is due to start again this week following a short break, with Claire McCarthy (The Turning) to share insights from her career on Thursday.

It comes after contributions from Gillian Armstrong, Rachel Perkins, Rolf de Heer, Samantha Lang, Corrie Chen, Ben Lawrence, Ana Kokkinos, Megan Riakos, Josephine Mackerras, Robert Connolly, Garth Davis, Sally Aitken, Jub Clerc, Kriv Stenders, Tom Zubrycki, Anna Broinowski, Peter Andrikidis, Jasmin Tarasin, and Glendyn Ivin.

The sessions are moderated by Adg strategy and development executive Ana Tiwary who is responsible for collating questions from those tuning in.

She has tried to focus on topics covering the practical aspects of directing that cannot be learned from a book,...

Jen Peedom’s River and Ben Lawrence’s Ithaka add to the already strong contingent of local films bound for August’s Melbourne International Film Festival, which unveiled its full program today.

Miff 2021 will include a hefty 283 titles, including 199 features, 84 shorts and 10 Xr experiences. Among them are 40 world premieres; the most in the festival’s 69 year history.

Some 62 of those films will be available nationally via Miff Play, the festival’s online screening platform, with the festival reimagined this year as a hybrid event.

“This year, Miff continues to evolve — to meet the moment, and to meet audiences where they are,” said artistic director Al Cossar.

“What will not change is the extraordinary lineup of cinematic adventures, from home and afar, waiting for them. These are anticipated festival blockbusters, experimentations, breakthrough discoveries, and a huge lineup of incredible Australian talent. We will again share a world of cinema, reignited, to...

Screen Australia-funded ‘Alick and Albert’ (Photo: Freshwater Pictures).

Screen Australia has decided to postpone the introduction of the revised documentary programs from July 1 until 2021, to the dismay of some factual filmmakers who wanted the new regime to happen sooner.

Announcing the move, Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason said: “Documentary has a unique set of challenges in this current situation and many creators in this space were already operating in difficult circumstances. As such, my focus right now is on giving the documentary sector as much stability as possible.”

The existing documentary programs including the Producer Equity Program (Pep) will remain in place for the rest of 2020. The budget for documentary in 2019/20 remains unchanged and Mason said the documentary team headed by Bernadine Lim is now working on a very large number of new applications.

In a letter to Lim from 360 Degree Films’ Sally Ingleton on behalf of the Australian Independent Documentary Group,...

Flickchicks’ ‘Bowled Over’ for Sbs’s ‘Untold Australia.’

The Australian International Documentary (Aid) group is urging Screen Australia to increase funding of single one-hours and feature documentaries.

This could be achieved by the agency reducing funding to broadcasters for format-based productions and by allocating a set percentage of its annual documentary spend ($16.26 million in 2018/19) on singles.

In response, Screen Australia reports it has 29 feature docs in various states of production which are yet to be released, compared with 27 TV docs, eight online and two Vr.

The group, which represents a broad church of factual producers, directors, writers and editors, supports the majority of Screen Australia’s proposed changes to docs funding guidelines.

The Aid welcomed the increase of up to $500,000 for development, the funds allocated to the Producer Program, reducing the cap for Commissioned Programs from $1 million to $750.000 and opening up funding to all major platforms.

However the group continues...

Graeme Mason.

Screen Australia expects to support the same number of documentary projects each year despite the proposed scrapping of the Producer Equity Program (Pep).

The Pep program had no qualitative controls and was becoming unsustainable due to the sheer volume of people who were trying to access that scheme, according to Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason.

Mason told a Senate Estimates committee in Canberra earlier this week that the creatively-assessed completion fund for low budget projects, which the agency is proposing to replace Pep, would help producers develop projects and at completion.

Asked by Labor Senator Anne Urquhart if the proposed funding regime may result in fewer projects getting assistance, Mason said: “It would be fair to say that some would not be eligible or would not be successful that could have been in the past.

“In the last two years the scheme was going so far over its...

‘Gun Ringer’.

The Northern Territory has ramped up resourcing for local productions, leveraging on the territory government’s plan to invest $9 million into the local film and screen sector over the next four years.

Three new projects are currently in production in the Top End, adding to the recent international recognition of locally filmed drama productions Top End Wedding, Sweet Country and Robbie Hood, in addition to Maya Newell’s documentary, In My Blood It Runs, which screened at the United Nations last month.

Among them is Gun Ringer, a 10 x 30 documentary series commissioned by the ABC and co-produced by Ronde and Ten 4 Media. The series is based on the successful iview series of the same name, and has attracted funding from Screen Territory, Screen Australia, Create Nsw and the ABC.

Brindle Films-produced feature documentary Uluru and the Magician, following struggling Sydney magician Dave Welzman and his top end sea change,...

‘Backtrack Boys’ director Catherine Scott is among those who spearheaded the campaign.

More than 250 filmmakers have co-signed an open letter calling for a “radical overhaul” of government policy in order to sustainably support the independent documentary sector now and into the future.

The letter, from the newly formed Australian Independent Documentary (Aid) group, argues that recent policy changes have undermined the viability of the independent documentary sector and its ability to produce distinct and original Australian content for both local and international audiences.

It calls variously for Screen Australia to work with the public broadcasters to create a dedicated strand on Australian public broadcast television for original Australian documentary, and for the federal agency to stop allocating funds to foreign majority owned companies at development and production stage; to increase funding support for original Australian formats; recognise cinema-on-demand as a legitimate form of cinema distribution, and to establish a dedicated fund for international co-production.

‘There were no blurry lines on that awkward day back in 1991,’ McKenzie says after Crowe stirs up controversy with his Actaa speech

Australian actor Jacqueline McKenzie has clarified comments made by Russell Crowe on Wednesday night at the Aacta awards, where he told what was perceived to be a tone deaf story about “sodomising” McKenzie on the set of 1992 film Romper Stomper.

McKenzie, who was nominated for an Aacta for her role in Don’t Tell, told Anna Broinowski for Guardian Australia: “[It was] absolutely not a #MeToo moment. It was awkward but dealt with as sensitively as possible, and we’ve joked about it for 25 years.”...

Australian documentary, 'Waste Nation' , from producer-director Dan Goldberg, is one of 10 projects selected for The FACTory..

The Australian International Documentary Conference (Aidc) has announced the 10 docos selected for its pitching forum, The FACTory.

Presented by Film Victoria and Screen Australia, the forum will allow the selected filmmakers to pitch their projects directly to international buyers, commissioners, and distributors. The forum takes place in front of a live audience.

Over 25 commissioning bodies are set to attend the event, including Tribeca Film Institute, National Geographic, Foxtel, BBC Storyville, Al Jazeera English, Canal +, Nhk Japan, American Documentary | Pov, Discovery and Universal Pictures.

The best pitch on the day will receive a marketing and distribution deal from The Solid State and Fan-Force — including $5,000 towards a theatrical trailer, poster and website, and $3,700 of distribution and social media marketing support services..

Selected from over 60 entries from around the world, the 10 successful projects are:.

Waste Nation (Australia...

Female film-makers donned sausage costumes to protest gender disparity in the Australian industry.Scroll down for full list of winners:

Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge was named best film of the year at the 2016 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (Aacta) awards, with the wartime drama taking nine of its 13 nominated awards, at an event that was also marked by activism on and off the stage.

Hacksaw Ridge was produced in New South Wales and financed through the Producer Offset and other state and federal government subsidies.

The film’s star Andrew Garfield was named best actor for his portrayal of conscientious objector Desmond Dawes, and Hugo Weaving won best supporting actor (again, after winning in 2015 for The Dressmaker) for his role as Dawes’ battle-scarred father.

Garfield accepted his award via video message from Los Angeles, and expressed “pure joy” at the win. He also singled out “Mel’s brilliant ability to make everyone feel valuable...

Hacksaw Ridge has picked up four Aacta Awards so far..

The first winners of this year.s Aacta Awards were unveiled yesterday at the Aacta Industry Luncheon.

Some 33 awards were presented during the event, celebrating screen craft excellence across features, television, shorts, and documentary. The remainder of the awards will be announced at the 6th Aacta Awards Ceremony on Wednesday evening.

Hacksaw Ridge picked up the most gongs: four from a possible six, including Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography and Best Sound. Mel Gibson's film is up for another seven awards, to be presented at Wednesday evening's ceremony..

Composer Antony Partos picked up his sixth AFI/Aacta award for his work on Tanna, while Simon Stone took out Best Adapted Screenplay for his debut feature The Daughter..Girl Asleep's Jonathan Oxlade won Best Costume Design.

The Aacta Award for Best Short Animation was presented to Angie Fielder,...

Films about North Korea have an unfair advantage. The country is one of such baffling oddness that films told about it are often either tragic or outrageous, two extremes that make for memorable viewing. On the other hand, the nature of North Korea’s political situation means few films are indeed made about it. Titles like Solrun Hoaas’ Pyongyang Diaries in which the Australian filmmaker ventured to a North Korean film festival and gave us a glimpse of what it means to be a traveller in this land of fake smiles and concrete, and the giddy delight of Anna Broinowski’s Aim High in Creation in which she travels to North Korea to learn how to make propaganda films from the makers themselves.

This year we can add two more entertaining docs. Both are full of surprises that beggar belief at seemingly every turn: The Lovers and the Despot and Under the Sun.

Director, Robert Connolly, will executive produce, Hive Fund winner, Guilty.

Guilty, Remembering Agatha and Bunghole have won funding in the third and final round of the Adelaide Film Festival Hive Fund initiative.

Australian artists Matthew Sleeth, Emma Magenta and Bruce Gladwin are set to collaborate with screen creatives Maggie Miles, Robert Connolly, Andrew Bovell, Julie Eckersley and Ester Harding on three new projects as part of the initiative.

Hive is an Adelaide Film Festival initiative in collaboration with the Australia Council for the Arts, Screen Australia and ABC Arts.

It is a disruptive initiative designed to bring together Australian artists and filmmakers to cross-pollinate their creative ideas, develop screen-based projects and support bright talent to take the next step.

The three newly commissioned projects will have their world premieres at the next edition of the biennial Adelaide Film Festival in 2017 and will all air on ABC TV.

The first project,...

Director, Robert Connolly, will executive produce, Hive Fund winner, Guilty.

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Guilty, Remembering Agatha and Bunghole have won funding in the third and final round of the Adelaide Film Festival Hive Fund initiative.

Australian artists Matthew Sleeth, Emma Magenta and Bruce Gladwin are set to collaborate with screen creatives Maggie Miles, Robert Connolly, Andrew Bovell, Julie Eckersley and Ester Harding on three new projects as part of the initiative.

Hive is an Adelaide Film Festival initiative in collaboration with the Australia Council for the Arts, Screen Australia and ABC Arts.

It is a disruptive initiative designed to bring together Australian artists and filmmakers to cross-pollinate their creative ideas, develop screen-based projects and support bright talent to take the next step.

The three newly commissioned projects will have their world premieres at the next edition of the biennial Adelaide Film Festival in 2017 and will all air on ABC TV.

The first project,...

Australia's leading directors have voiced their support for Screen Australia's plan to address the gender imbalance in Australian film.

Screen Australia is investing $5 million over three years to address the gender imbalance in the Australian film industry.

The screen funding body recently unveiled a five point plan which includes an immediate $3 million allocation of .jump start. funding to get female-led projects production-ready within two years, and a further $2 million of support for placements, distribution incentives, marketing and industry networking.

This also includes a goal to have production funding targeted at teams that are at least 50 per cent female by the end of 2018..

The plan follows the Australian Directors Guild's commitment to have women fill 50 per cent of the attachments and for 75 per cent of the attachemnts to reflect both gender and cultural diversity..

Australian Director's Guild president, Sam Lang, said she was pleased to see that Screen Australia had taken...

The Australian Directors Guild has welcomed the announcement by Screen Nsw CEO Courtney Gibson that the agency intends to moved to gender equity in its production and development finance by 2020.

.This is a great step forward for women filmmakers in Nsw and it shows great leadership in the screen industry," said Gillian Armstrong, a member of the Adg Women in Film Action committee (Wifac).

.We hope that Screen Australia and other state funding agencies will follow suit and aim to have the same gender equity in their production and development programs..

Wifac has been urging Screen Australia to introduce a 50 per cent quota for women in its film funding programs to fix a major gender imbalance for women directors. Only 17 per cent of films funded by Screen Australia in the last five years were directed by women.

Taking its lead from Sweden, which introduced a 50 per cent target on all its film funding,...

In this terrific documentary, director Anna Broinowski unfurls the dizzying patchwork of lies surrounding Norma Khouri’s memoir, Forbidden Love

Norma Khouri was perfect talent for a publishing house: an outspoken and articulate English-as-a-second-language author shining a light on a bone-chilling culture of brutal misogyny in an exotic foreign location.

Khouri’s 2003 memoir, Forbidden Love, which detailed the “honour” killing of her childhood best friend, Dalia – purportedly murdered by her father in Jordan because she fell in love with a Christian soldier – became a blockbuster. The book was published in 16 countries, sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide, and positioned the author as a vigorous advocate for the rights of oppressed Arab women.

Continue reading...

The latest rounds from Screen Australia.s Documentary Production Broadcast and Producer programs have seen 16 documentaries receive close to $4.4 million in funding..

This investment is expected to generate a total production expenditure of close to $16.7 million.

In a statement released to the media, Screen Australia.s Senior Manager, Documentary, Liz Stevens, said, .In the second round of the Producer program we are pleased to see producers aiming at ambitious and multi-layered release plans for stories that will appeal. The documentaries coming through the Broadcast program offer audiences good insights and a few surprises into many compelling Australian stories..

The Producer program enables filmmakers the flexibility to find the best pathway to their audience, whatever and whoever they might be.

The Documentary Production Producer and Broadcast programs now accept applications through the Online Application Portal. The next deadline for the Producer program is 18 September 2015. From 1 July 2015, the Broadcast program will accept applications at any time.

Matchbox Pictures. Nowhere Boys was named best children.s TV series and Mindful Media.s Redesign My Brain took the prizes for best factual series and best documentary, science, technology and the environment, at the 2014 Australian Teachers of Media (Atom) awards.

The best docudrama gong went to Electric Pictures. Enigma Man: A Stone Age Mystery in the awards presented at the Vca in Melbourne on Thursday night. In other documentary categories, Scarlett Pictures. Tender won the prize for general documentary, Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder.s JFK: The Smoking Gun collected the history prize and Unicorn Films. Aim High in Creation! won for social and political issues.

Best biography docu went to iKandy Films' 35 Letters and best arts docu was Pop Pictures. Sons and Mothers.

RocKwiz.s Brian Nankervis hosted the event attended by education and screen industry professionals, higher education students, screen funding body reps and sponsors. There were more than...

A roundup of news from the inaugural St Petersburg International Media Forum includes a busy French delegation and a local controversy brewing over Leviathan.

The King Of Madagascar, a kind of Russian answer to the pirate adventure films à la Pirates of the Caribbean, is being set up as a $ 16m international co-production by producer-director Oleg Ryaskov’s Moscow-based Bft Movie.

Speaking at the opening of St Petersburg International Media Forum’s (Spimf) co-production market this morning, producer Ryaskov revealed that the project - which is based on real historical events abouta Russian expedition by Peter The Great to the island of Madagascar in danger of being thwarted by Great Britain’s King George - has Spain’s Smartline Spain and the Us casting company Scott Carlson Entertainment on board as partners and is currently in talks with French and German production companies to join.

Ryaskov added that he intends to have American, European and Russian...

A roundup of news from the inaugural St Petersburg International Media Forum includes a busy French delegation and a local controversy brewing over Leviathan.

The King Of Madagascar, a kind of Russian answer to the pirate adventure films à la Pirates of the Caribbean, is being set up as a $ 16m international co-production by producer-director Oleg Ryaskov’s Moscow-based Bft Movie.

Speaking at the opening of St Petersburg International Media Forum’s (Spimf) co-production market this morning, producer Ryaskov revealed that the project - which is based on real historical events abouta Russian expedition by Peter The Great to the island of Madagascar in danger of being thwarted by Great Britain’s King George - has Spain’s Smartline Spain and the Us casting company Scott Carlson Entertainment on board as partners and is currently in talks with French and German production companies to join.

Ryaskov added that he intends to have American, European and Russian...

Fumi Nikaido will receive the inaugural Screen International Rising Star Award at the 13th New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff), set to run from June 27-July 14.

The festival will open with the international premiere of Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s crime thriller Overheard 3 and close with the North American premiere of Park Chan-kyong’s documentary Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits.

The previously announced North American premiere of Umin Boya’s period baseball epic Kano is the Centerpiece Presentation.

Taiwan’s Jimmy Wong Yu will collect the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award, while the Star Asia Award will go to Hong Kong’s Sandra Ng and South Korea’s Sol Kyung-gu.

The roster features a spotlight on local Hong Kong cinema called Hong Kong Forever!, a Sir Run Run Shaw Tribute and a focus on South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae.

Overall the Nyaff will present 60 features, among them Lou Ye’s Blind Massage, Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s My Man...

Fumi Nikaido will receive the inaugural Screen International Rising Star Award at the 13th New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff), set to run from June 27-July 14.

The festival will open with the international premiere of Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s crime thriller Overheard 3 and close with the North American premiere of Park Chan-kyong’s documentary Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits.

The previously announced North American premiere of Umin Boya’s period baseball epic Kano is the Centerpiece Presentation.

Taiwan’s Jimmy Wong Yu will collect the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award, while the Star Asia Award will go to Hong Kong’s Sandra Ng and South Korea’s Sol Kyung-gu.

The roster features a spotlight on local Hong Kong cinema called Hong Kong Forever!, a Sir Run Run Shaw Tribute and a focus on South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae.

Overall the Nyaff will present 60 features, among them Lou Ye’s Blind Massage, Kazuaki Kumakiri...

The Great Gatsby dominated. Aacta.s technical and short films awards today, collecting gongs in all six craft categories for which it was nominated, plus the Aacta award for outstanding achievement in visual effects.

The co-production Top of the Lake bagged two TV trophies while Matchbox Pictures. Nowhere Boys, created by Tony Ayres, was named best children.s TV series.

The TV documentary prize went to Redesign My Brain, which explores the revolutionary new science of brain plasticity, written and directed by Paul Scott and produced by Isabel Perez and Scott for ABC TV.

Writer-director Nick Verso's The Last Time I Saw Richard, produced by John Molloy, was honoured as best short fiction film. Developed and funded through Screen Australia.s Springboard program, the short is a prequel to the upcoming feature film Boys In The Trees, tracing the friendship between two teenagers in a mental health clinic in...

The Rocket was voted most popular feature and The Crash Reel as most popular documentary at the 62nd Melbourne International Film Festival (Miff).

The 17-day festival screened 320 films from 63 countries in 45 different languages, including 23 world premieres and 52 Australian films. .2013 has been a very successful festival boasting more than 170 sold out sessions,. said Miff artistic director Michelle Carey. .It.s very heartening to see audiences embracing the program and engaging with our guests both through Q&As and the Talking Pictures program.. The Age critics (Philippa Hawker, Jake Wilson and Craig Matheison) presented the Miff Premiere Fund-supported These Final Hours with a $5,000 cash prize and the title of best Australian feature while fellow Miff Premiere Fund title In Bob We Trust was hailed by Wilson as .one of the best Australian films of any kind in years.. Highlights of the 2013 Festival included:

- The world premiere of the Miff Premiere Fund-supported Tim Winton.s The Turning,...

Director Anna Broinowski is no stranger to confrontation; kicking off her documentary career with Hell Bento, a film that exposed subsections of the Japanese underworld. More recently she directed a startling fib-filled terror tale about Muslim romance called Forbidden Lie$. It was probably less of a surprise, then, to see her giddily striding around North Korea, always smiling and happily accepting any problems coming her way. Thankfully, Aim High In Creation is not a searing indictment of the repressed state of the Dprk, it instead seeks to utilize one of its most cherished resources: the film industry.Anna is on a mission that toes the line in the film more than once. She seeks to stop Coal seam gas mining in her local suburb and park sides....

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

As a solo producer, Unicorn Films. Lizzette Atkins has a remarkably diverse and prolific development slate.

Atkins is preparing projects for directors Sue Brooks, Matthew Saville and Ana Kokkinos plus a slate of low-budget horror movies. While they span a variety of genres, Atkins says there is a common thread: all are director-driven.

She founded Unicorn Films last year after nine years as a partner in Circe Films, whose credits include Jon Hewitt.s steamy thriller X, Lawrence Johnston.s Night and Eddie Martin.s Lionel, a feature documentary on Aboriginal boxer Lionel Rose.

Her latest production, Anna Broinowski.s Aim High in Creation! had its world premiere on Wednesday at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

The most advanced project on her slate is Brooks. Driving Back from Dubbo, the saga of a 15-year-old girl who runs away with her best friend to see her favourite band, prompting her parents...

Six of the 10 homegrown feature-length films that will have their world premieres at the Melbourne International Film Festival (Miff) have been supported by the Miff Premiere Fund, including anthology drama The Turning and Anna Broinowski’s documentary Aim High In Creation!.

Australia’s oldest and largest film festival runs from July 25 to August 11, opening with Pedro Almodóvar’s I’m So Excited! and closing with Jc Chandor’s All Is Lost, starring Robert Redford.

The 17 programme strands include activism on film and new Arabic cinema, both of which artistic director Michelle Carey says “effortlessly suggested themselves”, plus such perennial favourites as the backbeat music program, accent on Asia, night shift, international panorama and documentaries.

The Turning is an adaptation of the country’s most popular Australian book of 17 short stories set in one locale, interconnected and written by acclaimed author Tim Winton. A different person has directed each. Some are first-timers including actors David Wenham and Mia Wasikowska...

Four Australian films and two feature-length documentaries will premiere at the 2013 Melbourne International Film Festival (Miff), which runs July 25 . August 11.

All were backed by the Miff Premiere Fund, which launched in 2008 and has supported more than 40 films and docos.

All told the festival will screen 310 films, 10 world premieres, 166 Australian premieres, 17 program strands, 26 forums, talks and master classes.

The curtain raiser, previously announced, is I.m So Excited! Pedro Almodóvar.s satire on contemporary Spanish society. The closer is All is Lost, the almost wordless survival-at-sea drama starring Robert Redford, writer-director J C Chandor.s follow-up to Margin Call.

Accorded the Centrepiece Gala slot is The Turning, the film adapted from the Tim Winton novel consisting of 17 chapters, each from a different director with a stellar cast led by Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne, Hugo Weaving, Miranda Otto, Callan Mulvey, Susie Porter and Harrison Gilbertson.

The Australian Showcase section features Zak Hilditch.s These Final Hours,...

Anna Broinowski, an Australian documentary-maker, was given unprecedented access to some of North Korea's top secrets but, for once, it wasn't to do with politics or nuclear weapons. Instead, she went to uncover the fascinating, if somewhat unusual, world of North Korean cinema, controlled for so many years by the nation's “Creative Commander”, former Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il. The documentary Aim High In Creation, currently in post-production, began as Broinowksi's mission to create a short film following the rules laid out in the former North Korean leader's treatise Manifesto on the Art of the Cinema.

Years ago, the city of Durham, N.C. playfully adopted the nickname .Realitywood. after successfully hosting the annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. The moniker has since faded, but Durham hasn.t stopped serving as a destination spot for doc seekers who flood the sleepy tobacco town each spring in search of the finest stories being told by top-notch documentary filmmakers. This year.s fest, held April 4-7 in downtown Durham, was characterized by a tribute to the filmography of Oscar winner Jessica Yu (Last Call at the Oasis, The Living Museum), as well as a fascinating sidebar of programming dedicated to .Stories about Stories.. It was in that program that I finally was able to catch up with writer-director Anna Broinowski.s fascinating 2007 effort Forbidden Lie$, about the quest to verify the story of a Middle Eastern honor killing that might not have actually happened. Gems like Lie$ bring...

This article first appeared in If Magazine issue #150

Producer Lizzette Atkins justifies the theatrical nature of Aim High In Creation! on several levels: the scale and scope of the ideas; its experimental style; the broad interest in the closed society of North Korea; and director Anna Broinowski.s cinematic eye.

.And Anna has proven she can sustain a story for 90 minutes,. says Atkins, referring to the bold Forbidden Lie$..

If the various threads can be woven neatly together, this intriguing project could be a pearler. Cinematic propaganda is the key theme and the film follows Broinowski as she travels to North Korea to meet with that industry.s leading lights and examine former leader Kim Jong-il.s passion for cinema and the filmmaking manifesto he published. Back in Australia, applying the advice she got on a script she took with her, Broinowski makes a short about a community overcoming gas frackers . after all,...

Screen Australia says it has not mismanaged its finances by spending its annual production funding in just six months - a state of affairs which it says reflects the strength of the local film industry.

The government screen agency revealed in mid-December 2012 that it had spent its entire annual $42 million drama production allocation due to the unprecedented number of quality feature film and television projects seeking support. The shock announcement was reminiscent of the agency's abrupt decision to cut its investment cap in 2009 while several films were mid-financed. That decision.threw several major Australian productions into dissaray including The Tree and the biggest box office hit of.2010, Tomorrow When the War Began (Omnilab Media had to increase its investment at the last minute to ensure production).

Overspending on such a scale has never occurred before, even going back to the era of Screen Australia.s predecessor funding arm, the Film Finance Corporation.

Don Groves is a Deadline contributor based in Sydney Hugo Weaving and Don Hany will star in Healing, an Australian drama about a sympathetic prison warden and his efforts to rehabilitate an Iranian-born prisoner, one of four features agency Screen Australia agreed to co-finance at its board meeting today. The other films that secured Screen Australia investment are Aim High in Creation, a hybrid documentary-drama celebrating “the cinematic genius” of the late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, from writer/director Anna Broinowski and producer Lizzette Atkins; and the previously announced The Rover, a futuristic Western from Animal Kingdom writer/director David Michôd, starring Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce; and Felony, which will star Joel Edgerton as a decorated cop who knocks down a young cyclist while driving home after celebrating a drug bust, scripted by Edgerton and directed by Mathew Saville. Healing will be directed by Craig Monahan, who co-scripted with Alison Nisselle.

David Michod

David Michod’s new film has received funding from Screen Australia, as part of almost $20m of investment from the screen agency.

The investment is expected to trigger $100m worth of production across four feature films, five TV dramas and three children’s dramas.

The Rover is written and directed by Michod, with a story by Michod and Joel Edgerton.

The film has cast Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson in the lead roles.

Michod will also produce the film alongside his Animal Kingdom producing partner Liz Watts for Porchlight Films and David Linde, Ep on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for his Lava Bear Films.

The film will be distributed by Village Roadshow with international sales by FilmNation.

The Rover, set in the Australian desert in the dangerous near-future sees Eric, a man who has lost almost everything in life, have his car stolen by a gang of criminals.

Screen Australia will invest almost $20 million across 12 screen projects including futuristic Western The Rover, starring Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce.

The film is the latest collaboration between producer Liz Watts and writer-director David Michôd, following the success of their crime-thriller Animal Kingdom in 2010. FilmNation Entertainment acquired the majority of worldwide rights to The Rover at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year while Village Roadshow will distribute the film in Australia.

Screen Australia has also backed three other feature films: drama Felony, written by Joel Edgerton and directed by Matthew Saville (Noise); Healing, a redemptive prison drama starring Don Hany (East West 101) and Hugo Weaving; and Aim High in Creation, a hybrid documentary-drama about the late Kim Jong-il from writer/director Anna Broinowski (Forbidden Lie$).

Screen Australia chief executive Ruth Harley said the four Australian features have huge potential. "The Rover is a powerful, well-crafted script from a talented team with an impressive cast,...

Screen Australia is calling on applications for their Springboard: Short Film Initiative.

The short film development and production opportunity is designed to help filmmaking teams one step away from making their first professional feature film.

A three part workshop to take place between December 2011 and February 2012, it will see five teams of writer, director and producer, develop a short film to be a talent showcase for festivals and act as a calling card for a proposed feature film. As such, teams will be required to submit two short film ideas as well as their feature film idea.

“Springboard is about career building for the long term and Screen Australia recognises the way short films can provide an essential stepping stone in a professional career for an emerging filmmaker,” said Head of Development, Martha Coleman. “This Springboard workshop maintains the strategic vision while focusing more acutely on the broader creative process...

The inaugural Walkley award for Excellence in Documentary is now accepting submissions.

The award is open to a variety of documentary styles; investigative, biographical and first-person. This new addition to the awards joins the non-fiction book award in rewarding long-form journalism.

As Anna Broinowski said at the launch last month, “With information delivery platforms now sped up to the point that a Twitter sentence is news, it is encouraging to know that the Walkley Foundation values the narrative complexity, intellectual engagement and emotional depth that longer-form documentaries continue to achieve.”

The documentary piece may have first been released for theatre, broadcast or the web, with a run time of over 40 minutes. Entries must also have been shown in the 12 months from September 1, 2010 to August 31, 2011 to be eligible for entry.

The winner will be invited to Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto.

Entries close Wednesday 31 August, 5pm.

For more information visit Walkleys.

The Walkley Foundation yesterday launched the Walkley Award for Excellence in Documentary.

Helping to launch the award was Walkley award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Anna Broinowski at the Museum of Sydney.

“It is inspiring to know that sound ethics, solid research, accuracy and public benefit are all to be valued in this unique and timely award,” Said Broinowski. “With information delivery platforms now sped up to the point that a Twitter sentence is news, it is encouraging to know that the Walkley Foundation values the narrative complexity, intellectual engagement and emotional depth that longer-form documentaries continue to achieve.”

The award is looking for excellence in the examination of both national and international issues, including investigative, biographical and first-person stories.

The documentary award adds a 34th category to the Walkley Awards and joins the Walkley non-fiction book award in recognising and encouraging excellence in long-form journalism.

Media Alliance federal secretary and Walkley Foundation CEO,...

Screen Australia has invested on the development of features Remarkable Creatures (written by Jan Sardi), A Murder of Crows, Black Echoes, Sibling and Worms.

The investment round includes three short films from the Springboard Program, meant to act as ‘calling cards’ to feature film proposals.

The features in development are:

Black Echoes

Producers Michael Robertson, Murray Pope

Writers Shayne Armstrong, Shane Krause

A group of international tourists are taken off the beaten path to an isolated village deep in the Vietnamese countryside. They are promised a Viet Cong tunnel crawl experience that makes the famous Cu Chi Tunnels seem like a playground… Tighter, more claustrophobic, scarier – they get their money’s worth and then some.

A Murder of Crows

Producers Murray Pope, Michael Robertson

Writers Shayne Armstrong, Shane Krause

Director Nick Robertson

Lost love brought him there, cold-blooded murder kept him there, now dark vengeance takes flight.

Remarkable Creatures

Producer...

Everyone’s going to Adelaide this week, to be at the country’s most risk-taking festival. Encore spoke with festival director Katrina Sedgwick and associate director Adele Hann about the secrets behind its success.

The first point of differenceis the festival’s Investment Fund, which has delivered some of Australia’s most acclaimed films of recent times, including 2009’s Samson & Delilah. The pressure to continue this high level of performance from its slate hasn’t seen the funded projects become safe, predictable choices. It’s been quite the opposite.

“The Investment Fund has meant that Australian cinema is put to the forefront. Over time the success of the slate has generated anticipation; it’s become the element of the program that people really look forward to, the one that sells out first and excites the industry. One of the great things festival director Katrina Sedgwick does with that money is...

Mrs. Carey’s Concert, Bob Connolly’s first documentary since 2001′s Facing the Music, will open next month’s BigPond Adelaide Film Festival on February 24.

The biannual event will be closed by Brendan Fletcher’s Mad Bastards.

Mrs. Carey’s Concert (co-directed by Sophie Raymond) is one of the 14 projects supported by the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund. The film chronicles the preparations for a classical music concert at a Sydney’s girl school; both directors will be in attendance, alongside the school’s music director Karen Carey and some of her students.

Other guests in attendance will include:

The International Award jury – Julietta Sichel, Pierre Rissient, Hossein Valamanesh, Trevor Groth, and Robin Gutch; The Hive participants (Richard Tognetti, Meryl Tankard, Garry Stewart, Gideon Obarzanek, Kate Champion, Michael Kantor, Rose Myers, Chris Drummond, Matthew Whittet, Lynette Wallworth, Susan Norrie, Tony Krawitz Glendyn Ivin, Anna Broinowski, Ashlee Page, Amy Gebhardt and...

DVD Playhouse—November 2010

By Allen Gardner

Paths Of Glory (Criterion) Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 antiwar classic put him on the map as a major filmmaker. Kirk Douglas stars in a true story about a French officer in Ww I who locks horns with the military’s top brass after his men are court-martialed for failing to carry out an obvious suicide mission. A perfect film, across the board, with fine support from George Macready as one of the most despicable martinet’s ever captured on film, Ralph Meeker, and Adolphe Menjou, all oily charm as a conniving General. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Audio commentary by critic Gary Giddins; Excerpt from 1966 audio interview with Kubrick; 1979 interview with Douglas; New interviews with Jan Harlan, Christiane Kubrick, and producer James B. Harris; French television documentary on real-life case which inspired the film; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby 1.0 mono.

Winter’S Bone (Lionsgate) After her deadbeat father disappears,...

Six teams have been accepted into Screen Australia’s Springboard short development initiative, with the projects Please Explain, Bon Scott, The Last Hurrah, Scratch the Surface, Cat Night Morning and Dieback.

The teams will participate in two workshops to develop their short and revisit their feature script. Three projects will go into production, with a budget of up to $150,000.

Springboard will be run by screenwriting teachers and script consultants Simon van der Borgh and Jonathan Rawlinson.

The six teams are:

Leanne Tonkes (p), Steve Kearney (p), Anna Broinowski (w/d) with political satire Please Explain Lizzette Atkins (p), Sophie Edelstein (w), Eddie Martin (d) with biopic Bon Scott Sheila Jayadev (p), Matthew Zeremes (w), Oliver Torr (w), Martha Goddard (d) with drama The Last Hurrah Jannine Barnes (p), Grant Scicluna (w/d) with psychological thriller Scratch the Surface · Annmaree Bell (p), Cj Johnson (w/d) with caper Cat Night Morning...

Showtime's documentary investigating the controversial best-selling author Norma Khouri will be premiering on August 6. The documentary tracks the investigations of Khouri as her potential web of lies unfolds.

Khouri claimed to be a Jordanian virgin on the run from Islamic extremists and wrote the book "Forbidden Love." She was later labeled a fraud by an Australian journalist after it was discovered she was a married Chicago real estate agent and the mother of two with the real name Norma Bagain. She was also under investigation by the FBI for one million dollars of fraud.

Somehow Khouri's book slipped past the international publishing industry and has caused a huge stir in the literary world. The author and book has left people asking if her desire to stop honor crimes is genuine or is it just a clever con.

The documentary is directed, written and produced by Anna Broinowski and is produced by Sally Regan.

Showtime's documentary investigating the controversial best-selling author Norma Khouri will be premiering on August 6. The documentary tracks the investigations of Khouri as her potential web of lies unfolds.

Khouri claimed to be a Jordanian virgin on the run from Islamic extremists and wrote the book "Forbidden Love." She was later labeled a fraud by an Australian journalist after it was discovered she was a married Chicago real estate agent and the mother of two with the real name Norma Bagain. She was also under investigation by the FBI for one million dollars of fraud.

Somehow Khouri's book slipped past the international publishing industry and has caused a huge stir in the literary world. The author and book has left people asking if her desire to stop honor crimes is genuine or is it just a clever con.

The documentary is directed, written and produced by Anna Broinowski and is produced by Sally Regan.

Release Date: April 3 [now in limited release]

Director: Anna Broinowski

Writer: Anna Broinowski

Cinematographer: Kathryn Milliss and Toby Oliver

Studio/Run Time: Roxie Releasing, 104 mins.

Fascinating character study is a duel of lies

The stated purpose of most investigative documentaries is to uncover the truth, but many of them launch their most spectacular fireworks from a substantial platform of lies. And it’s hard to imagine a more compelling liar than Norma Khouri, the subject of Anna Broinowski’s irresistible portrait, Forbidden Lie$. In 2003 Khouri wrote a nonfiction account of the murder of a childhood friend in Jordan. Ostensibly published to expose the injustice of an oppressive, misogynistic society, the book, entitled Forbidden Love, sold hundreds of thousands of copies. But when Khouri became a touring speaker, a few of the book’s details fell apart under the harsh light of scrutiny, like her statement that the city of Amman has a river running through it.

Accused literary fabulist Norma Khouri in Amman, Jordan. Looking back, 2003 was a big year for bullshit artists in this country. George W. Bush had his Iraqi W.M.D., James Frey published A Million Little Pieces, Jayson Blair went berserk over at the Times, and a woman who called herself Norma Khouri published Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan. Billed as non-fiction, this page-turner told the story of Khouri’s friend, a Muslim woman living in Jordan, who is the victim of an “honor killing” after her family discovers her chaste affair with a Christian man. Honor Lost was initially published in 2002 in Australia, under the title Forbidden Love, and became a bestseller. But in 2004, the literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that, although Khouri had indeed been born in Jordan, she had been living in Chicago during the years her story took place. Khouri’s book was withdrawn from publication,...

“Cool-headed, lighthearted and outrageously entertaining, ‘Forbidden Lie$’ is documentary-as-striptease, a careful peeling of claim and counterclaim to reveal one of the most complex literary scandals of our time,” says the New York Times’ Jeanette Catsoulis about Anna Broinowski’s film, echoing the mostly positive press its received. “Crossing continents and genres, Anna Broinowski’s distinctively styled movie blends candid interviews and tongue-in-cheek re-enactments into what can only be described as a literary whydunit. …...

Norma Khouri goes from hero to goat in "Forbidden Lie$."

As you probably don't remember, Khouri -- claiming to be a Jordian virgin being hunted by Islamic crazies -- struck gold in 2003 with her book "Forbidden Loves."

It told of a Muslim friend who was killed by her Jordanian family because she dared to fall a love with a Christian man, a big no-no in that part of the world.

Khouri's bubble burst about a year later when an Australian newspaper revealed that she is really non-virgin Norma Bagain, a Chicago real estate agent and married mother of two being sought by the...