Screen Australia backs 22 new projects Wed 16/12/2009

By Brendan Swift

Screen Australia will invest $13 million across 22 new productions, including its first 3D feature film, Bait.

The investment in four feature films, four television dramas and 14 documentaries is expected to trigger production valued at over $65 million.

Screen Australia chief executive Ruth Harley said 2009 has been a strong year for the Australian industry.

"A record number of films have achieved theatrical release, the Australian share of the box office looks set to exceed the five-year average, and television drama and documentary continue to draw strong audiences,” she said in a statement.

Total Australian box office revenue currently stands at about $995 million for the year, up 12 per cent on a strong 2008, with demand for 3D films bolstering attendances.

Three of the top seven feature films at the local box office over the year to date were 3D animations: Ice Age 3 ($30 million), UP ($28 million) and Monsters vs. Aliens ($21 million).

Bait 3D, written and directed by Russell Mulcahy (Razorback, Highlander), received strong support at the recent American Film Market.

It tells the story of a Gold Coast town hit by a tsunami, trapping dozens of local shoppers and tourists in a flooded underground supermarket and car park, where they are pursued by tiger sharks.

Screen Australia will also invest in writer-director Jonathan Teplitzky's drama Burning Man. It tells the story of a father and son’s struggle to deal with the unimaginable. Teplitzky has been directing television and commercials since his last feature Gettin’ Square in 2003.

The other two feature films are Blame, by writer-director Michael Henry, and Red Hill, by writer-director-producer Patrick Hughes.

Among television drama, Screen Australia will invest in a third season of the SBS crime series East West 101 and new mini-series Like a Virgin, about a woman whose sexual history catches up with her.

Varuna Pathways Forum: Stories to Screen Mon 2 NovVaruna Pathways Forum: Stories to Screen Mon 2 Nov

Varuna, The Writers’ House presents: Stories to Screen One-Day Forum

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Wake In Fright

Eye opener...Jack Thompson (top) in Wake In Fright.

The film was hugely influential but mostly with nascent Australian filmmakers, some of whom saw it as a national disgrace that two great films had been made about Australia in one year, neither by an Australian (the other was Walkabout, directed by Nic Roeg). Perhaps that's why they were so good they were made by people who didn't have to live here.

Australia had no film industry to speak of in 1971. What there was gave us a rosier picture of ourselves the gentler comedy of They're A Weird Mob, for example.
Wake In Fright took no prisoners. It was a vision of outback Australia as one of the inner circles of hell, a place of mad, murderous men and dull-eyed, sluttish women.

Varuna’s writing programs are national programs and are full of opportunities for writers from the Blue Mountains.

This year the LongLines Community Week will focus on writing practice. Up to eight Blue Mountains writers will be offered a place in this week, and will undertake to have a work week, which means working during the day and coming to Varuna for three evenings to have conversations with the five LongLines writers who will also be working at Varuna. The week will take place October 19-25.

Information on all programs can be obtained by visiting www.varuna.com.au.