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Careless Love Opening Night + Q&A
With director John Duigan ('The Year My Voice Broke') and cast Nammi Le and Peter O’Brien. THU 17 MAY – 7pm RITZ CINEMA, 45 St Pauls Street, Randwick NSW 2031 TICKETS ON-SALE – book now www.ritzcinema.com.au “Careless Love” tells the story of...
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Screen Australia Wants You
Publisher Dov Kornits finds out what Screen Australia is up to.
I was privileged to sit in on a media meet-and-greet with the new head honchos of Screen Australia, the organisation recently formed to replace the Australian Film Commission (AFC), the Film Finance Corporation of Australia (FFC) and Film Australia (dare I say FA?).
The offices in William St., Woolloomooloo in Sydney's inner city are going through a few changes as all three organisations move on in, but one thing's for certain: the views from their offices are worth the budgets of a few Australian feature films. After a few mesmerising moments spent admiring the view from the meeting room, I was snapped out of my hypnosis, and told to sit down and ask questions. I didn't manage any, but luckily my fellow journalists Sandy George, Michaela Boland and Garry Maddox, amongst others, had plenty to ask, so I was safe.
Under the pump from the Screen Australia side were Chairman Glen Boreham and CEO Dr. Ruth Harley, who handled themselves admirably. Boreham comes from a corporate background (IBM), whilst Harley is from the land of plentiful sheep and, more significantly, Peter Jackson. Boreham said that his favourite Aussie films are historical in subject matter, with Gallipoli and Breaker Morant the standouts. He even confessed that he'd like to see more of those types of films financed by the new organisation. Harley wasn't as candid, but she did say that Breaker Morant is one of the only films where she can quote a line of dialogue: "A slice taken from a cut loaf won't be missed."
When I think about this line in hindsight, I wonder if she mentioned it for a reason...
The official reason for the gathering emerged early on. Screen Australia have drafted a Statement of Intent (SOI), and want to let the world know that they're inviting comment from the industry and whoever cares to have their opinion heard, until September 30. Screen Australia will use the directions articulated in the SOI as the basis for developing programmes to be offered in the 2009 calendar year. So head to http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/soi now.
Some of the interesting points brought out in the meeting were their feeling that Arts Minister Peter Garrett's recent statement that Australia should be making 35 films per year was off the mark. From their experience - specifically those of Dr. Harley, who travels to film markets - there are too many films being made in the world right now, and the focus should be on quality, not quantity. She may know something, as she did a lot of good for the NZ film industry, but Harley confessed that was a tiny industry compared to Australia, and also noted that Australian TV is way ahead of our Southern brethren. An interesting point brought up by Harley was the need to have a look for inspiration at film industries such as Israel, where very recently local films collectively have started enjoying box office figures in the teen percentages of the entire take in the country, whereas a few years back it was virtually 0%. In Australia, if you take away Happy Feet and the like, our films take about 1% of the entire box office.
Mr. Boreham mentioned that he'd like Screen Australia to start with a clean slate. Towards the end of the session, he piped up with the claim that he wants to make Screen Australia a more commercial organisation, and wants to encourage our producers to be more collaborative. This led to another point where he threw out the claim that out of the many films produced in this country recently, very few collaborations between film directors and producers continued on to a further project. He looked at Ruth Harley at that point and got her to comment about the fact that NZ production is simply more sustainable because of the encouragement of forming production houses, which then developed projects. In their opinion, this is something that is lacking in Australia.
As we were being wound down, someone asked whether the Screen Australia logo, which incorporates Australia's coat of arms on the left and the words SCREEN AUSTRALIA on the right, was going to be featured on all Australian films funded post-2009. After a bit of a giggle, and a confession that it currently looks rather daggy, Boreham confessed that an application is currently in front of the government asking to omit the left part of the logo...
So that's it for my brief report on the future of Australian government film funding.
Make sure you get on down to http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/soi until Sept 30 Australian film industry pundits.
