Ian Robertson has been quoted in IF Magazine saying that telemovies should qualify for the 40% Producer Offset given to Australian feature films. He said that this would help to alleviate the problem producers are having getting Australian distributors from signing on to Australian films.

Robertson was described by IF’s Don Groves as speaking on behalf of Holding Redlich at SPAA, but he is also on the boards of Screen Australia and Film Victoria, and therefore his opinion, expressed publicly, is more powerful than most. He was talking at a SPAA masterclass in Sydney on Wednesday.

SPAA has been advocating for the entire television drama slate to be able to qualify for the 40% rebate instead of 20% at present. This would of course be a game-changer. But since Australian movies are already accused of looking like telemovies, I wonder if lifting the producer offset would actually work?

Mark Poole