Network president Ivo Lovric has been making films for 15 years. Photo: MELISSA ADAMS
It may not be in the big league yet, but the Canberra film industry is set to receive a $1.8 million boost in the forthcoming ACT budget.
Chief Minister Jon Stanhope made the announcement yesterday at the launch of the new offices of the ACT Filmmakers Network at the Belconnen Arts Centre.
He said the fund would boost the capacity of the government-funded body, ScreenACT, to attract and retain business in the creative sector.
The fund was expected to support up to six feature films, as well as smaller documentaries, television and animation projects, over three years.
Philip Pullman on censorship and free speech -- pithy and wonderful
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By Cory Doctorow
Philip Pullman, addressing an audience at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, was asked about whether his latest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, was offensive. Here's his reply:
"It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That's all I have to say on that subject."
George Miller has appeared on ABC News in Australia, showing off the cars he’s having built for Mad Max 4 and discussing his plans for the movie. This includes some hard facts on the casting. After a short sharp burst of rumours, it’s good to get some straight and low-down.
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GOLDEN age ... Muriel's Wedding with Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths. Source: The Courier Mail
AMERICAN hotshot producer Chris Adams is being tipped as the man who might just save Australia's floundering movie industry.
Adams is regarded as a major player, an internationally acknowledged new-media pioneer who's also been involved in multiple Oscar-winning movies. His film financing company Participant Media has delivered Syriana, Charlie Wilson's War, Good Night and Good Luck and An Inconvenient Truth to name a few.
More importantly, Adams is headed our way.
After a decade of commuting to this country for family reasons, the 41-year-old entertainment industry executive will relocate permanently to Queensland this year.
Along with baby-faced Adams, however, come some pretty harsh assessments of Australia's beleaguered movie-making scene.
Our scripts are no good – virtually unsellable, in his experience. We're too focused on small, dark, inward-looking films that not enough Australians want to see. Too much of our output is globally irrelevant. We don't know how to collaborate to get the best results.
