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Thank God It’s Friday!
For Melbourne film fans, Fridays are about to get even better with AFTRS’ popular ‘Friday On My Mind’ event now making its way down to Victoria.
Aaron Eckhart & Bill Nighy Descend on Melbourne
The cast of ‘I, Frankenstein’ are hitting our shores with the gothic thriller set to start shooting February 27.
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Ray Lawrence, Rachel Ward, Russell Crowe and Toni Collette, are just a sample of the impressive filmmaking talent behind a new feature set to showcase Sydney...
When Life Gives You Lemons...
Alethea Jones scored the top prize for her quirky short at this year’s Tropfest.
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Aussie Films at the Box Office in 2011
See how our host of local flicks fared at the box office last year...
Coming off the back of another successful year at the box office for Australian films, 2012 is gearing up for another run of hits. Last year's Red Dog, Sanctum (pictured) and Oranges and Sunshine were the big winners in terms of home grown cinema admissions. Red Dog took home $21.3million - the first Aussie film in two decades to break the $20 million mark without the backing of a major Hollywood studio.
Meanwhile, the James Cameron produced 3D action adventure Sanctum found a home among international audiences banking just over $100 million globally and becoming one of the all time top 10 Australian films in overseas territories.
"Last year we had some great achievements with Red Dog leading the way. But the other notable performance that deserves praise is Bob Connolly and Sophie Raymond's feature documentary Mrs Carey's Concert, which took over $1 million at the box office to become the fourth highest grossing documentary of all time," said Fiona Cameron, Screen Australia's acting Chief Executive.
Of the $1.09 billion Australian cinemas made last year, $42.9 million (3.9%) of that was directly from Australian content totalling in 44 theatrical released titles.
"While our overall domestic share of the box office is down, 2011 was certainly the year of critical success. Australian films featured in all six premiere international film festivals with the standout achievement of Sleeping Beauty screening in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival," Cameron remarked.
Australia Day saw the release of Stephan Elliott's (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) A Few Best Men, a mad cap wedding disaster comedy with hopes of becoming another hit for the director and a classic within the Aussie lexicon alongside Muriel's Wedding, Priscilla and The Castle.
Speaking of The Castle, A Few Best Men's release will be closely followed by Any Questions For Ben? Directed by Rob Sitch, it's the first big screen release from the folks at Working Dog since The Dish in 2000.
Other 2012 releases include the shark thriller Bait; Dead Europe produced by The King's Speech Emile Sherman; Killer Elite starring Robert De Niro, Jason Statham and Ben Mendelsohn; P.J. Hogan's (Muriel's Wedding, My Best Friend's Wedding) Mental with Toni Collette; the real life rise to fame of an Aussie all-girl singing group with The Sapphires, and Kieran Darcy-Smith's Wish You Were Here currently competing at the Sundance Film Festival, just to name a few.