BOOKS AT MIFF turned 5 in 2011, and I honoured the birthday with this coverage for Screen Hub:

MIFF turns 60 this year, and is theoretically eligible for a pensioner discount on Melbourne transport. Books at MIFF is 5. So does that mean it has learnt to walk and talk and begin to take bigger steps into the world?

I’ve been to all five Books at MIFF, and I’d say 2011 marked a smoothness of delivery, and an ever increasing signs that the world of publishing and the world of screen production are beginning to understand each other’s opportunities and limitations.

The event continues to gain critical mass, with support from Film Victoria and the Victorian Government as well as Screen Australia, and a growing influx of producers from interstate as well as locally.

Each year there is a session where ten pitches are made to the audience, and these have grown in confidence and ability too. As somebody called out, Seph McKenna from Roadshow would probably have won the prize if it had been a reality TV show for his pitch of What Makes Us Tick by Hugh MacKay, but the others were at least competent, and some intriguing enough to entice producers to check out the works later.

Continue reading BOOKS at MIFF turns 5 →

Well known writer and director Michael Rymer gave an inspirational talk to the Australian Writers’ Guild last year.

He is one of very few Australians who have managed to build a career straddling Australia and Hollywood. His film Angel Baby (1995) won a truckload of AFI Awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay, and it also won a Writers Guild of America award for Best Original Screenplay.

As Michael told us, his career began by getting into the University of Southern California Film School, where he studied writing under Robert McKee, and learnt the principles of drama according to Aristotle. He then did a two year course in acting, where he learnt a lot having classic plays and films scripts read and workshopped.

He returned to Australia and sold his first script to Roadshow, Dead Sleep in 1992. However for Michael this became a learning experience in why it’s sometimes better to keep control of a film yourself. So when he wrote Angel Baby a few years later, he was determined to hold onto the directing reins.

Continue reading Michael Rymer: Face to Face →

Shaun Grant’s screenplay Snowtown has won the first Best Adaptation Screenplay in the first ever AACTA Awards this week.

It’s significant as it’s the first feature Shaun has written. Also Shaun was a driving force in getting the film made, optioning the book on which the film was based and finding a producer in Warp Films.

Justin Kurzel also took the AACTA gong for best direction for Snowtown. And some believe the film might have taken out Best Film if it wasn’t such a gruelling viewing experience, as it had to be to tell the story of the barrel murders.

Mark