Screen Australia’s Head of Business and Audience, Richard Harris, talks to IF about the year that’s been, what’s ahead and the risk of betting big on blockbusters alone.

How’s this year looking to you as compared to last year?

Last year was pretty remarkable. One of the problems I have, and particularly after a big year like last year, is the kind of short-term-ism of trying to guess how things are performing. One of the things you get with a big year like last year or a really poor year the year before is [people say], everything’s terrible or everything’s great. We [Screen Australia] are looking at reporting things on a longer term basis. Last year, for example, we got great results that came through from The Water Diviner but it didn’t actually recognize that The Water Diviner had released over two years. It released after Boxing Day. This year the ultimate results for the year won’t necessarily be as good as they would be because, you know, they had actually previously released Oddball last year when it was actually originally scheduled for this year. And then Red Dog [True Blue] is going to release at Christmas and play over January. So we’re looking at trying to capture things in a three-year cycle as opposed to a single-year cycle. I think this is a broader concern that we have: [that] this kind of spike and ditch [mentality] doesn’t necessarily reflect the way things are.

Last year was always going to be hard to top.

Last year was actually a funny year because we had a record year but in June that year we’d actually written in our distribution paper that this is the most challenging time ever for Australian independent films. And then suddenly we had this record year. So it was a bit strange (laughs). Here we are claiming it’s all going to hell and high water, and then we turn around and a whole bunch of films kick a bunch of goals – which is great. But even though the year was great, the underlying challenges in distribution remain. And they particularly remain for independent films. What we do know just from that paper and from the research we did, is that there are slightly more screens than there were five years ago. The number of screens increased but actually the number of films taking up the majority of screens has reduced. Last year we had films like Mad Max and Dressmaker and Last Cab to Darwin, all of which played on more than 100 hundred screens, which is fantastic; the distributors felt they could find an audience and they all played well. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that most of our films are playing in these smaller zones and there’s more competition in that zone. More films, less screens. More and more I think you’re going to see films going direct to either an iTunes release or perhaps to a VOD release. Stan is very interested in finding films that may not have a theatrical home but actually create a good thing for their brand in terms of being a disruptive sort of film.

Speaking of small films that might be disruptive and provoke social media chatter, a film like Down Under perhaps could have been a perfect film for that platform.

I think that’s exactly the sort of thing [we should do]. Hopefully smart distributors will go: rather than spending some money on P&A and having a film that goes out to not many – we hardly even recoup that P&A – maybe we should just do a direct sale to Stan and allow them to have a disruptive film that builds the brand. [Down Under] Is a good film but not a theatrical film. There seems to be three broad areas that are working for films in cinemas at the moment. Theatrical has a challenge in that it’s coalescing into about three areas: one is kids – people are still taking their kids to see Pixar films, Secret Life of Pets – or they’re going to blockbusters.

Although this year has been weaker than last year because a few of them have come out and absolutely tanked, but nevertheless that’s a theatrical space that people are still going to watch films that they feel they have to watch on the big screen. Then there’s the older-skewing and female-skewing films. So if you look at the Australian films that worked last year, you look at Dressmaker, that worked in the older-skewing, Last Cab worked in the older-skewing, Mad Max worked in the blockbuster space, and the kids space was Oddball, Paper Planes and Blinky Bill. And Water Diviner also played well in the older skewing space. All of those films really landed where theatrical audiences are going now.

Given how many sequels have underperformed this winter, is there any trepidation about Red Dog: True Blue, which opens on Boxing Day, especially as it’s a few years since the original?

I think this is different. And [that’s] something that theatrical exhibitors have said [to me]. I first started in this job eighteen months ago and I was meeting with a few exhibitors, and having come off such a poor year, I was trying to work out: have they given up on Australian films or are they still thinking that they play? And actually, they all felt Australians responded to films when they worked. Their view was [that] when Australian films work they actually over-index. I think Red Dog has such a broad family appeal: it plays firstly into the space of what is a classic space that theatrical audiences are still going to. It’s a film that plays young but can play across to families. I think the response so far to the film has been that this film can really appeal. And it is a bit of a prequel, so I think that also works for it.

Stan are looking to get into the longer-form space, as you mentioned before. Does Screen Australia have any sense of whether the streaming platforms are putting any pressure on theatrical?

I certainly don’t have any data. I think they’re keen to find ways that they can actually get films earlier and have films that might do a small screening and then be allowed to have a shorter window and get onto Stan. What that release is allowed to look like is a continuing conversation with exhibition and exhibition is naturally and quite justifiably concerned about the integrity of those windows. It’s between 90-120 days.

It was 120 but there’s been a bit of slippage on that. 90 days generally. So Stan I’m sure would be keen for a film to have a small release or a couple of marquee screenings and then head straight into the platform. There have been some films that have done those sorts of releases but they’ve tended to go straight to transactional.

How happy the exhibitors are with the idea is another question.

Outside of streaming platforms themselves nabbing theatrical films, do you think those platforms are putting more pressure directly on cinema-going because people are staying home watching on their laptops?

I don’t think so. I think the challenge on exhibition has been there for some time. The fracturing of all of those platforms is an ongoing thing. It’s a challenge for everyone.

Foxtel is challenged by streaming as is the free to air [networks]. Everyone’s place in the ecosystem has been challenged and the general sense I’m getting is that the arrival of the streaming platforms has actually increased overall viewing rather than cannibalizing everyone [else]. Having said that, I think there are absolute challenges, particularly for free to air. I think there are bigger challenges to linear watching than there is to the exhibition space, actually. What’s happening to the exhibition space is that there’s going to be continuing pressure on really making those small films work, and that’s the challenge. If I was in theatrical, I’d be concerned that if your diversity of offering is reducing, and you’re actually putting your bets on those three areas, then your capacity to keep getting audiences is at risk. We’re seeing it a little bit this year when the blockbusters don’t work. What other films do you have to actually get people in to your cinemas? But I don’t think there’s anything that says that Stan turning up has meant less people going to your cinema. Overall there are a series of thing happening in the home which Stan and Netflix have just added to. To leave the house, to pay money for babysitting, for parking – all of that now means that I need to make a conscious decision about whether I’m going to see something on the big screen or stay at home and watch something else. That’s the challenge that exhibitors face, and why they’re putting these bigger bets on these things that you must go out and see on the big screen.

By Harry Windsor INSIDEFILM [Mon 14/11/2016]

Los Cabos Film Investor Summit debates the ins and outs of attracting Hollywood talent or sales agents

The biggest panel at the Los Cabos Film Investor Summit was also the most practical. Execs at two Hollywood agencies – Paradigm’s Nick LoPiccolo and United Talent Agency’s Bec Smith – four sales agents – Voltage Pictures; Nicolas Chartier, FilmNation’s Karen Lunder, Alex Walton at Bloom and Sierra-Affinity’s Jonathan Kier – debated how a relatively unknown director, or their producer, can grab their attention, and persuade them to take a chance on them. The repartee was sometimes jocular. That said, the panelists were talking about a subject very dear to them. Of LoPiccolo’s 63 clients, 39 are from international, he said. As the panel’s moderator, AG Capital’s Laura Walker, observed, the number of stars which sales agents can sell overseas markets on, is finite. And the task of accessing them has grown. The challenge of breaking through is not just one these days for the talent itself. Selling relatively unknown talent to the U.S. domestic or international markets has become one of the lifebloods of the independent sector. Here are ten tips aired in a lively session:

1.The Screenplay And Director’s Vision

If you’re unknown, it will come down to your screenplay. “It comes down to the director and the script. If the script is there and you believe in it and the director’s vision for it, that’s all you need,” said Kier. He added: “I think you have to assume that almost always you won’t have cast for those smaller films. It has to be the script.” Lunder, FilmNation EVP, production, concurred, citing “Room.” “What we drill down on is the script. The script and the filmmakers. It’s about storytelling and that is where you begin. Lenny had made films nothing like ‘Room.’ Brie Larson had been in ‘Short Term 12.’ and was a buzzy actor in Hollywood but no where else. It was only because it was such wonderful execution that people started to notice.”

2. For God’s Sake, Be Brief If You’re Emailing An Agent

When pitching an agent, Chartier instanced a best practice email. “Just say: ‘Dear Nicolas, I’m a filmmaker. This is my trailer and the link to my movie.’ Don’t tell me the movie is great and you’ll want to see it.”

3. Get Your Foreign Language Movie To A Bankable Actor

Nathalie Portman was attracted to “Jackie” after seeing Larrain’s “The Club,” a searing putdown of the Catholic Church, yes, but a movie whose half-dozen lead characters are portrayed with a compelling psychological complexity. When signing foreign directors, LoPiccolo observed: “For agents, you need to look for filmmakers that have a voice, a smart take on material, that can execute first in their own language and then can translate to the point that you can show a movie in a foreign language to an actor who has some bankability and they are gonna say: ‘I need to work on this film,’ – which is the director’s next title. That remark brought general agreement at the Winston Baker organised Summit.

4. Be Original

It’s a necessity these days, not a virtue. A director’s vision needs to be “singular, interesting, and unique” so that it will “stand stand out in a marketplace flooded with a lot of ordinary or mediocre films,” said Smith, a literary agent at UTA.

5. Make A Short

“When we developed ‘Animal Kingdom,’ people said: ‘There are so many crime dramas already and what’s special about this one?’ Smith remembered. “Even though David Michod is smart and articulate, it wasn’t landing. In the end, the best selling tool he came up with was to make a short. It was not a piece of the film, it wasn’t a scene, it was a standalone short film that had characters and a similar world and look and feel. That short was when people said: ‘Oh, I get it.’”

6.Adapt A Property Which Is Already Out There

Said Bloom’s Walton: “The marketplace is big and tastes vary, so choosing ideas strong enough to have the ability to translate is crucial. Basing your film on an established IP gives you a bit more stability.”

7. Attract Talent That Endorses Your Vision

“It can help to have producers who have a strong established track record attached to your film. It’s a sign to the marketplace you are an exciting filmmaker,” said UTA’s Smith. She added: “Obviously attaching actors that are meaningful and well known is great, but even attracting a high-end director of photography or production designer or editor can indicate that this is a filmmaker who needs to be taken seriously.

8. Use Festivals

“All the people on this panel don’t have weeks and weeks to go to festivals and they really go to Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, Berlin, and that’s where you get feedback from people like this,” said Lunder. That said – and it’s a sea change in Hollywood which impresses international filmmaking communities – it’s extraordinary how connected some of Hollywood’s talent agents are becoming internationally. And their ability of some of them to keep a vast range of events on their radar. Paradigm signed up Isaac Ezban, the singular Mexican sci-fi director, off Los Cabos. He is now directing “Mr Robot’s” Martin Wallstrom and “Vice Principals’” Georgia King in “Parallel.”

9. What Not To Do?

Choose the wrong American movie, said Chartier. “If your first movie in America is a $60 million-$70 million dollar movie that is bad, you go back to France.”

10. Get Some Friends

Many passed on “Dallas Buyers Club.” Chartier financed it, but he didn’t want to take credit for it, he said. “I passed three times. I did it for a friend, producer Cassien Elwes who called me and asked me for help, not for the material. When I was a janitor, he got me my first job as a writer. 20 years later, I gave him $3 million. But it wasn’t because of the material. I’m not that smart. Friends: That’s a great way to make films,” Chartier concluded, maybe only half-joking.

John Hopewell – Variety – November 11, 2016

The director’s been delving into the film’s ‘unpublished archives’ on Instagram.

Even 20 years after its release, Romeo + Juliet maintains its magnetic pull.

Not only did the film cement the matinee bankability of boy wonder Leonardo DiCaprio; create a fresh appreciation for The Bard’s stodgy words; and leave a generation cooing to Des’ree’s tearjerkin’ Kissing You – but schoolkids forever will be indebted to director Baz Luhrmann for giving their lazy English teachers a more colourful classroom-viewing alternative to those black-and-white oldies with Laurence Olivier. Shakespeare’s famous play is updated to the hip modern suburb of Verona still retaining its original dialogue.

Now, Luhrmann himself has taken to Instagram to celebrate the film’s 20th anniversary – it was released in the US on November 1, 1996 and on Boxing Day in Australia – by sharing a behind-the-scenes treasure trove of pictures, trivia and gossip from the film’s “unpublished archives”.

“Many doubted the preposterous ambition of setting Shakespeare’s beloved tragic romance in a heightened creative world, with a then relatively unknown Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. But we did make it, overcoming incredible odds shooting entirely in Mexico,” Luhrmann wrote in a post announcing the week-long nostalgia trip.

Chief among the tidbits are tributes to the dedication of his fresh-faced star, who was still a year removed from the widespread LeoMania (and ‘Pussy Posse’ antics) that would greet his role in James Cameron’s mega-blockbuster Titanic.

“When I was trying to get the film made, Leonardo agreed for the price of two plane tickets to come with his wonderful father George DiCaprio to explore the idea in workshop form all the way down in Australia,” Luhrmann recalls, describing the young star as “a great artist and collaborator”.

The film, which came with a $14.5 million budget undertaking for Luhrmann, was his biggest at the time; following on from the ridiculous worldwide success of the lil’ indie Strictly Ballroom. But it was beset by on-set catastrophes, including cast members nearly being run over in the street and tropical hurricanes blowing away complete sets, the director revealed.

He also walked through the inspiration and logistical difficulties behind some of the film’s most memorable shots, like the scene where the lovers first catch a glimpse of each other through the hazy glow of a fish tank – apparently captured after a post-work jaunt at a Miami nightclub (“I was younger then,” writes Luhrmann).

“When I came out of the bathroom to wash my hands, I looked up and saw a woman combing her hair with a brush through a fish-tank. It was a brilliant device to get guys and girls to connect through the sitting rooms, while protecting each room’s privacy. Obviously you can see where this moment lead…” Luhrmann wrote.

He also shared a selection of images of the cast at work (is that a young David Blaine on set?) and the collage boards – largely created by his artistic director and partner Catherine Martin, who earned her first Oscar nomination for the film (she lost out that year to The English Patient’s Stuart Craig, before taking out the prize for Moulin Rouge! in 2001) – that defined the film’s distinct visual style.

Besides film nerds and ’90s kids, Luhrmann’s memory trip has earned the attention of his “good friend” Humberto Leon of fashion label Opening Ceremony, who announced an impromptu exhibition of the film’s artifacts – including DiCaprio’s iconic Hawaiian button-up, “sourced from the backstreets of Sydney”, Luhrmann wrote – at their flagship store in New York.

See Baz Luhrmann’s behind-the-scenes Instagram treasure trove of pictures, trivia and gossip here:

www.instagram.com/bazluhrmann

Rob Moran – SMH – November 7 2016

There is a lot riding of money and prestige riding on Mel Gibson’s WW2 violent drama Hacksaw Ridge when it opens in Australia on November 3 and the following day in the U.S. Not just because this is Gibson’s first shot at directing since Apocalypto in 2006 and that Lionsgate and Australian distributor Icon are putting a lot of resources and effort into the release.

The Australian film industry is hoping the critically-acclaimed movie, which tells the true story of U.S. Army medic and conscientious objector Desmond Doss, will spark a revival for the nation’s cinema which has not generated a single home grown hit this year.

Some 50 Australian titles released this year or earlier collectively have grossed $A12.8 million ($9.7 million) through last Sunday, according to the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia. That’s a sharp decline from the 2015 calendar year total of $A88 million, a record 7.18% market share, led by George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker, Russell Crowe’s The Water Diviner, Stuart McDonald’s Oddball, Rob Connolly’s Paper Planes and Jeremy Sims’ Last Cab to Darwin.

The top-grossing Australian production is Alex Proyas’ $140 million fantasy-adventure Gods of Egypt, which collected just $A2.5 million. Simon Stone’s The Daughter, a re-imagining of an Ibsen play starring Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill, Ewen Leslie, Paul Schneider and Odessa Young, made $A1.7 million while Jennifer Peedom’s superb documentary Everest earned nearly $A1.3 million.

Levi Miller and canine co-star Phoenix in ‘Red Dog: True Blue’ Exhibitors are confident the business will rally with Hacksaw Ridge followed by Red Dog: True Blue, the prequel to 2011 hit Red Dog in December, and true-life drama Lion in January.

Australian films face the same hurdles as indie titles from the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere in securing screens and connecting with audiences in the ever-crowded theatrical market. “Films with strong local stories and ideas can cut through,” says Roadshow Films group co-CEO Joel Pearlman, who is distributing Red Dog: True Blue. “However the market is very unforgiving for anything that is not excellent in execution and original story and ideas . It is a global challenge; it has never been easy.”

Unusually Roadshow has no Aussie titles on its 2017 release schedule. Quite a few projects are in development but none is ready to announce. “The biggest challenge is finding great material,” Pearlman says. “I wish there was more of it.” Village Cinemas general manager Gino Munari concurs, “Aussie films just need to tell a good story and have good production values.”

Tait Brady, who runs boutique distributor Label, says, “I suspect that what we are starting to see now may be the result of the budget/financing squeeze that hit the production sector a while back. That has has resulted in driving budgets down and we are seeing films in two clear categories – the low budget dramas such as Joe Cinque’s Consolation, Early Winter, Killing Ground, Boys In The Trees and Bad Girl, and bigger, star-driven vehicles like The Dressmaker, Lion and the Red Dog prequel. The more conventional Aussie films budgeted at $A4 million-$A5 million are harder and harder to get up and, as good as these ‘smaller’ films are, they struggle to grasp audiences’ attention.”

Hacksaw Ridge stars Andrew Garfield as the pacifist U.S. Army medic who won the Congressional Medal of Honor after saving dozens of soldiers during the bloody Battle of Okinawa. Parr is confident it will gross $A10 million, opining, “Mel is back to his best. The film is as good as Saving Private Ryan but with a love story as a plus.”

Co-owned by Gibson and his producing partner Bruce Davey, Icon is releasing the drama on 255 screens in Australia and on 70 in New Zealand. “The reception for Hacksaw has been consistently strong from all quarters including festivals, reviewers, industry, interest groups, premieres and public previews,” says Icon CEO Greg Hughes. “We expect a strong gross box-office and our quietly optimistic estimates are not that far below some of the exhibitor forecasts.”

The national cinema is virtually certain to end the year on a high note with the December 26 debut of producer Nelson Woss and director Kriv Stenders’ prequel to Red Dog, which fetched $A21.5 million. The plot follows 11-year-old Mick (Levi Miller) who is shipped off to his grandfather’s (Bryan Brown) cattle station in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia. While Mick expects a dull and tough rural life, instead he finds adventure and friendship with a scrappy, one-of-a-kind dog. Garth Franklin’s Lion chronicles the journey of Indian-born Australian Saroo Brierley who found his birth mother 25 years after they were separated, starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham and Rooney Mara which had rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival, and will be released on January 19 2017.

On paper the outlook for 2017 looks promising. Apart from Lion the line-up includes Rachel Perkins’ Jasper Jones, a coming-of-age mystery starring Levi Miller, Angourie Rice and Aaron McGrath. Paul Currie’s 2.22 is a romantic thriller about an air traffic controller in New York who nearly causes a fatal mid-air collision and then falls in love with one of the plane’s passengers, featuring Game of Thrones’ Michiel Huisman and Teresa Palmer. Jeffrey Walker’s Dance Academy: The Movie, is a spin-off of Werner Film Productions’ globally-successful TV series. Dev Patel and Armie Hammer star in Anthony Maras’ Hotel Mumbai, a thriller based on the 2008 siege of the Taj Mahal hotel, which the Weinstein Co. acquired for the U.S.

In March/April Label is releasing Hounds of Love, the debut feature of writer/director Ben Young. The thriller stars Stephen Curry and Emma Booth as a couple who abduct a teenager (Ashleigh Cummings), who soon realizes she must drive a wedge between her captors if she is to survive. In a great example of talent development, Good Universe and Mandeville Films have hired Young to direct Extinction, a sci-fi thriller which follows a man haunted by nightmares in which his wife is assaulted and becomes a hero when Earth is invaded by an army bent on destruction. James McAvoy is in the frame to play the lead.

Don Groves – Forbes – Oct 24, 2016

Read the article in full here:

www.forbes.com/sites/dongroves/2016/10/24/will-mel-gibson-help-rescue-
australian-cinema-from-having-a-downer-year/#21dbd34e4afd

On Halloween 1997, two estranged teen skaters embark on a surreal journey through their memories, dreams and fears: Boys in the Trees opens on October 20.

When he was at school in Melbourne, film director Nicholas Verso was almost expelled for being a goth. “I blackened everything,” he says. “Lashes, eyebrows: it was a big commitment.” While he thought his friends looked pretty cool in the pipe at the skate park, he was much too unco-ordinated to join in.

“I was more an observer than a participant, more of a goth wearing dark clothes and trying not to move much in the summer.”

He laughs from behind what is now long, all-natural fair hair. We are at the Venice Film Festival; the sun roars like a furnace while we scurry with plastic chairs to find a spot under trees. At 36, Verso’s style has morphed into ragged ’70s hippiedom, but his skin is still porcelain pale. It seems a bit of a shame to waste such a perfect canvas.

Skating looms large and slow-mo in Boys in the Trees, his first feature. The film is set among a group of teenagers in their final year at high school in the ’90s, when Verso himself was at school in Kew, with torrents of music to match. Corey, played by Toby Wallace, is an aspiring photographer who dreams of living in New York, although probably anywhere that wasn’t an Australian suburb would do.

He can’t say too much about that to the other dudes in the gang. For Jango (Justin Holborow), his ostensible best mate and the pack leader, everything anyone could want – “weed to smoke, bitches to f—, fags to bash” – is right here. Those things

include the much brighter Corey; he needs him to want the life they have. Way across the gender divide, however, their classmate Romany (Mitzi Ruhlmann) gets it; her own hope is to escape to a dreamland Canada, with its extreme weather, pine-clad mountains and bears.

This clash of aspirations reaches crisis point on Halloween, when Corey finds himself alone in his wolf costume with Jonah (Gulliver McGrath). He is the runt of the class, the routine punching bag for Jango and his thicker mates and – as is soon revealed – he was Corey’s best friend when they were in primary school. Feeling guilty about having stood by while Jonah was abused, Corey agrees to walk him home through the dark of All Hallows’ Eve.

Revellers in full carnival dress emerge from the mist; their walk becomes increasingly surreal as they slip from the present into their shared past. A “memory tree” in the forest, illuminated apparently from within, is hung with hundreds of objects culled from childhood, now as magic and faraway as any land in the clouds.

Demons – called “darklings” – emerge from the ground. An Indigenous man appears in the gloaming, wearing a funereal black suit: some kind of harbinger of death, perhaps?

Everything in Boys in the Trees, says Verso, reflects his own life somehow. “They all came from things I felt; I sometimes looked at people together and thought they were like animals, like wolves. The darklings came from listening to what people say when they crush each other’s dreams, just quietly over a drink,” he says.

“I was very inspired by [sci-fi novelist] Ray Bradbury, who said [in Zen and the Art of Writing] you should write about things that enthuse you, so I really tried to write things I had experienced and felt strongly. I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time. I didn’t want to make a first film I wasn’t willing to die for, to be honest. So I had to pour my blood into it.”

You can see the blood. Along with the ghoulies and ghosties and hallucinatory spectacle, Boys in the Trees deals with the stuff of current headlines: bullying at school, teenage depression and modern confusions about what being a man should mean.

When Verso started writing it, he intended to set it in the present, but technology got in the way: no modern Corey could wander off on a party night without being pursued by a shower of texts. Even his determination to be a photographer seemed dated.

“That was a strange thing to be in the ’90s – it took some effort – whereas everyone thinks they are a photographer now because technology enables that. So I think there was a real innocence in that respect.”

What hasn’t changed – or, in Verso’s opinion, has worsened – is the entrenchment of a vengeful version of thwarted masculinity. It’s unlikely, he agrees, that even a gang led by someone as knuckled-headed as Jango would be so automatically homophobic now; teenagers have moved on. At the same time, he remembers “so many cool female role models”, from his childhood television favourite Roseanne to Sigourney Weaver in Alien to P.J. Harvey and Courtney Love in the music world. “And at a certain point, it felt like that just went away.”

Now we live in a cultural era dominated by the anxious sensibilities of “scared little men” that he thinks probably has its grounding in the world he explored in Boys in the Trees. “I mean, you look at violence against women now. That comes from male fears, from deeply uncivilised men who haven’t learned how to be themselves and who were teenagers at this time. So it’s interesting looking at them in the ’90s and going, ‘Well, this was their last moment of being kids. What were they like, what message weren’t they getting, to know how to be men?’ ”

Not enough attention, he says, is paid to rites of passage. Toby Wallace, who plays Corey, is 21 and grew up in Wheelers Hill; he recognises a lot of the real-life elements in the film. “I had to go through separating myself from group situations or the part of town I was from and say, ‘I am my own person, I can lead my own life’.”

He started acting when he was 13, but it was moving into the city after school that changed him. By the time he was Corey’s age there was, of course, a new kind of bullying afoot, the cyber form. “We are in an age that is more open to talking about those things – depression, anxiety, the stages of people’s lives, bullying – but then the other side of it is that we are in such instant communication with each other.”

Which makes the ’90s, which hardly seem very long ago at all, a different time, even a prelapsarian time. “Kids now are absorbing stuff constantly through their phones and the internet,” says Verso. “I think in the ’90s you had romantic notions that could be shattered.” Romany’s idea of Canada, for example, probably comes from a Joni Mitchell song; these days she could just google everything she wanted to know.

“And I can’t imagine now people talking as much as those two boys talk in the film without looking at their phones or Instagramming along the way. I think people were more in the moment. And you could live out your little teen mistakes without having a camera in your face.” Not much chance of that now; the packs may have loosened, but there’s a lone wolf around every corner.

Stephanie Bunbury – SMH – October 14 2016

Early Winter director, Michael Rowe, the Australian-born filmmaker talks about what he sees as the problems with the Australian film industry: “I’ve watched creative workshops there for directors and writers that are terrifying.”

“At 23-years-old, I felt that Australia was a bit boring and a bit staid and set in its ways,” writer/director, Michael Rowe tells FilmInk. “The dizzying heights of cultural creation were a little bit far away and a little bit unreachable. There are certain cultural sacred cows that are highly valued. They’re up high like gods. And as a 23-year-old, I felt it impossible to aspire to. I feel like the cinematic world is way too dominated by people who have nothing to do with the creative processes.”

It was partly that sense of disconnection that drove Michael Rowe on what has been a continuing journey around the world, and continuing separation from his home country. Born in Ballarat, Michael Rowe now lives in Mexico, which is where he made his first big splash with the shot-in-Mexico, Spanish-language 2010 drama, Leap Year, which won the coveted Golden Camera Award at The Cannes Film Festival. Still to make a film on Aussie soil, Rowe’s latest film is the controlled, finely nuanced Early Winter, an Australian/Canadian co-production about a seemingly typical marriage in Quebec that is slowly coming apart at the seams.

Tellingly, Rowe has embraced outside filmmaking communities, while maintaining a more distant one with Australia. “I’ve watched creative workshops there for directors and writers that are terrifying,” he continues about Australia’s filmmaking scene.

“They give them all these workshops about funding bodies, about distribution, and about how to reach and appeal to certain audiences. So you get all these poor bloody kids who are in their twenties or thirties, with all this shit in front of them, and they’re trying to make a film. You can’t start out with that. You can’t have the cart before the horse. If you’re thinking about audiences, and worse than that, producers, and worse than that, distributors, and worse than that, funding bodies…,” his voice trails off.

“If you’re thinking about pleasing these people before you’re thinking about what kind of story you want to tell, then it’s destined to failure and absolute mediocrity.

There’s a saying, ‘A camel is a horse designed by a committee.’ And that’s what happens when you have funding bodies and distributors in the mix. It’s not their fault, but they know nothing about creative processes. They do their best to give helpful advice, but since they don’t know how it works, they get it all wrong. And the poor creators are beaten over the head with ideas that are completely irrelevant, and it makes it a very difficult environment for creating. I feel very sorry for them, and this vision needs to change.”

Michael Rowe, however, doesn’t want to just stand by and watch it continue.

“Whatever I have in terms merit and achievement, I hope that I can help change things at least a little bit,” he says. “There’s a massive amount of talent in Australia, and it’s usually hamstrung by the fear of funding bodies and distributors, and this ridiculous idea that somebody is going to be able to make a film that is going to make everybody rich. You’ve got 20 million people, and you’re not going to make any film that’s going to make anyone rich even if everyone in the country sees it. Stop it! Make a film that’s about something honest. Animal Kingdom, for instance, is an honest film. It’s a good film. And I know that there’s a lot of David Michod in that film; his suffering, his struggles, it’s all there. It’d be very difficult for anyone else to have made that film. And that’s why it resonates, because it’s true. You cannot hide honesty on screen. If you’ve got the balls to put it out there, it’ll work. Even if you have to dress it up as a film about bank robbers. The other thing is the politically correct police. Let’s make a film about indigenous transsexual lesbians because that’s going to get funding. That’s not the way either. You can’t be thinking about funding, you can’t be thinking about distribution, and above all, box office, when you’re creating something. It’s going to turn out bad.”

And what about Michael Rowe’s relationship with the funding bodies? Can he see himself working with them in order to shoot a film in the country where he was born? “Early Winter is an Australian co-production, and I have got an upcoming project in Australia that I’m working on for 2018,” the director replies. “I am interested in working in Australia. I think that the Australian funding bodies will have no problems in letting me work on my terms and my kind of film. I have a track record now with a couple of decent prizes that will allow them to justify that. I am enthused about that.”

FilmInk Presents will be hosting a series of Q&A screenings of Early Winter with Michael Rowe, taking in The Nova Carlton in Melbourne (October 4), Dendy in Canberra (October 5), New Farm Cinemas in Brisbane (October 7), Dendy Newtown in Sydney (October 9), and The Regent Cinema in Ballarat (October 10), which is where Michael Rowe was born. The film will then be released in cinemas nationally on October 13.

For further information on screenings, head to FilmInk Presents:

https://filmink.com.au/2016/early-winter/

Read the first and second parts of the FILMINK interview with Michael Rowe:

https://filmink.com.au/2016/michael-rowe-an-expat-returns-with-early-winter/

https://filmink.com.au/2016/early-winter-director-michael-rowe-the-internationalist/

By Dov Kornits FILMINK September 27, 2016

Momentum Pictures has taken U.S. rights to family entertainment movie “Oddball,” which is being sold at the Toronto Film Festival by Global Screen. The final Australian theatrical box office for Oddball hit $11 million in December 2015 <from a $7 million budget> and went on to be the top-grossing Australian Family Film of 2015 for distributor Village Roadshow.

The film has also been acquired by Snap for free-TV, pay-TV and VOD rights in Latin America, Trade Media for France, Just4Kids for Benelux, Lusomundo for Portugal, Champ Lis for China, and Suraya for Malaysia.

Previously announced deals include sales to Icon for U.K. and Ireland, Mongrel Media for Canada, Microcinema for Italy, Kino Swiat for Poland, Gulf Film for Middle East, Fivia for Ex-Yugoslavia, Albania and Slovenia, Medyavizyon for Cyprus and Turkey, Star Films for Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia (theatrical rights), and Globo for Brazil (TV and VOD rights).

“Oddball” stars up-and-coming Australian star Shane Jacobson (“Kenny”), Sarah Snook (“The Dressmaker,” “Steve Jobs,” “Predestination”) and Alan Tudyk (“Frozen,” “I, Robot”) in the lead roles, and tells the true story of an eccentric chicken farmer who, with the help of his granddaughter, trains his mischievous dog Oddball to protect a penguin sanctuary from fox attacks, while also trying to reunite his family and save their seaside town.

The film opened TIFF Kids Film Festival in April, and has screened at more than 40 film festivals.

“Our buyers simply cannot keep from the irresistible charm of ‘Oddball,’ clearly demonstrated by the ever-growing momentum of sales on the film,” Julia Weber, head of theatrical, said in a statement.

“Oddball” is produced by WTFN/The Film Company, Practical Pictures and Kmunications, in co-production with Screen Australia and Fox International Channels, in association with Film Victoria.

Leo Barraclough – Variety + Wikipedia – September 12, 2016