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Exclusive: Wscripted has unveiled the projects and talents selected for its fourth Cannes Screenplay List supporting scripts by women and non-binary writers.

This year’s list, which is presented in collaboration with long-standing partner Mubi, was curated by an international jury featuring Bafta-winning and Oscar-nominated actress Vanessa Kirby, Costa Rican-Swedish director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén (Clara Sola) and writer and filmmaker Nathalie Marchak.

Marchak was a nominee on the inaugural Cannes Screenplay List of 2021 with her second feature A Beautiful Journey, which is produced by Anonymous Federation and Gabman Films.

The 2024 list features 10 female filmmakers and screenwriters looking for producing and financing partners from the U.S., Canada, Australia and India.

They include Nominees include Cuban-American filmmaker Marissa Chibás, a 2022 Sundance Screenwriting Fellow who received the inaugural Sundance/Gold House Accelerator Grant, for her immigrant family drama 1972; Indigenous Australian filmmaker...

Hot Hosts Head For Hota

Australian actor Rebel Wilson has been named as the emcee of the 2024 edition of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (Aacta) awards. Wilson will take to the stage on Saturday, Feb. 10.

Two days earlier, on Feb. 8, singer and actor Harry Connick Jr. will be the host of the Aacta Industry Awards. Both hosts will be joined by some of the industry’s most dynamic stars presenting at the ceremonies. And both ceremonies, presented by Foxtel Group, will be held at the Home of the Arts (Hota) on the Gold Coast in Queensland.

Shorts To Features

Writer-director-actor Alice Englert, producer Jodi Matterson, director David Michôd, and producer Jamie Hilton, will be among the speakers at Flickerlab 2024 on Thursday. Pitched as a one-day journey from shorts to features, the Bondi, New South Wales-located event is backed by the Australian Film Television and Radio School (Aftrs...

In the Aquarius Films and ABC drama Savage River, Jocelyn Moorhouse was offered the kind of mini-series she’d love to watch herself.

The Dressmaker director is an enthusiastic binge watcher of crime mysteries and Scandi-noir – particularly those with great female characters – so the Katherine Langford-led series was right up her alley.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve always wanted to do one of these, and here it is.’ It’s dark, brooding and really well plotted,” she tells If.

Now three weeks into pre-production, Savage River was officially announced as part of the ABC’s upfronts today. Production will begin early next year in Melbourne and regional Victoria.

Langford plays Miki Anderson, a young woman who returns to her hometown in rural Victoria after eight years in prison.

She’s determined to finally move on with her life, getting a job in the local meatworks, but the...

Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof has won this year’s $60,000 Sydney Film Prize for There Is No Evil, beating out 11 other Sydney Film Festival (Sff) competition films.

The winner of last year’s Berlinale Golden Bear triumphed amongst a field that included Leah Purcell’s The Drovers Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson, Asia Pacific Screen Awards winner, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, and Ben Sharrock’s Limbo, which was given a special mention.

Designed to examine the impact of capital punishment on Iranian society, the 2020 drama follows four thematically linked stories about individuals facing complex dilemmas.

In awarding the prize at yesterday’s ceremony at the State Theatre, Sff Jury president David Michôd said the There Is No Evil was “adventurous with form and genre, beautifully performed and realised with a deft touch for simple, elegant filmmaking craft”.

“Picking a winner from a collection of films as diverse as this one is never easy,...

Chicago Med and Arrow star Colin Donnell is to lead Peacock’s Australia-set crime drama Irreverent.

The series, which Deadline revealed last month had scored a straight-to-series order, will also feature Pj Byrne, Kylie Bracknell, Briallen Clarke, Tegan Stimson, Ed Oxenbould, Wayne Blair, Russell Dykstra, Calen Tassone and Jason Wilder as series regulars.

Irreverent follows a criminal from Chicago who bungles a heist and is forced to hide out in a small Australian reef town in Far North Queensland posing as the new church Reverend.

Donnell will play Mack/Paulo, a skilled and articulate mediator who keeps the peace between organized crime families in Chicago. After a mediation goes badly wrong, Mack flees to a remote beach town in tropical Australia where he is forced to assume the identity of a Reverend in order to stay ahead of the people who want him dead.

Created by Paddy Macrae (Wanted), the...

Colin Donnell is trading his scrubs for a slightly different cloth. The former Chicago Med star will lead Peacock’s Irreverent, a co-production between the streamer and Netflix Australia, TVLine has learned.

Irreverent‘s official logline describes it as a “fish out of water drama that follows criminal mediator Paulo Keegan (Donnell) as he flees the United States after a mediation gone wrong and assumes the identity of Reverend Mackenzie ‘Mack’ Boyd. ‘Mack’ finds himself trapped in Clump, Australia — a small, eccentric beach town hundreds of miles away from civilization and phone reception. In order to stay alive, ‘Mack’ must...

Australian talent will be front and centre in Matchbox Pictures/NBCUniversal International Studios’ drama Irreverent when it starts production in Queensland tomorrow.

Kylie Bracknell, Calen Tassone, Briallen Clarke, Tegan Stimson, Ed Oxenbould, Wayne Blair, Russell Dykstra, and Jason Wilder will be series regulars on the Netflix and Peacock co-commission, with Susie Porter, Bridie McKim, Martin Sacks, and Ursula Yovich also set to appear.

Created by Paddy Macrae, Irreverent follows criminal mediator Paulo Keegan (Colin Donnell) as he flees the United States after a mediation gone wrong and assumes the identity of Reverend Mackenzie “Mack” Boyd in Clump, a small, Australian beach town hundreds of miles away from civilization and phone reception.

While there, he encounters Piper (Bracknell), a gifted cop who has returned to her hometown after a successful start to her career in the city, and begins to suspect he isn’t who he says he is. Clarke plays...

Andrea Bocelli On The Lido

Upcoming six-part Italian TV series Blanca held a special screening on the sidelines of the Venice Film Festival Monday evening with renown tenor Andrea Bocelli, who acted as artistic advisor, in attendance. See a first-look image above. The Lux Vide production, in association Ria Fiction, is due to air later this year on Rai 1. The story centers on the eponymous young woman who became blind as a child. The loss of her elder sister, at the hands of an abusive boyfriend, pushes her to enter the police force. Her specialty is decodage, an analytical listening technique, but while experiencing challenges at work, she faces sentimental challenges and must decide whom to give her heart and trust. Helping in these adventures are her most trusted friends: guide dog Linnaeus and Stella, a beautician with a very exuberant character. Blanca is billed as the first production...

Dunghutti filmmaker Darlene Johnson is the inaugural recipient of Sydney Film Festival and Deutsche Bank’s $20,000 First Nations fellowship.

Aimed at mid-career creatives with a proven track record, the initiative facilitates self-directed professional development or industry placement.

Johnson will work with Aquarius Films to undertake both a producer and director’s attachment, while also developing with the company her own original TV drama concept.

While Johnson forged her early career in documentary with projects like River of No Return and The Redfern Story, in recent years she has shifted back into drama. Her 2015 short film Bluey won Sff’s Event Cinema Australian Short Screenplay Award, and more recently, her directing credits include Aquarius’ Born to Spy, The Heights, Neighbours and Home and Away. She was also in the writer’s room for upcoming Netflix/Peacock drama Irreverent.

For Johnson, the fellowship has come at an opportune time, as she builds her career in long-form narrative.

Australia, 1957. Esther William's turn as Australian swimming legend Annette Kellerman has made it out here to the segregated suburbs. From polio to the pool, Kellerman is a foundational figure in synchronised swimming. Her musical biopic Million Dollar Mermaid is the inspiration for the title. Even adjusting for inflation there's some disparity.

Two Bob Mermaid was Darlene Johnson's debut short. Carrie Prosser, who plays protagonist Koorine, and Tessa Leahy, who plays her mother, were similarly new. The story is a simple one, but bound up in the Australian aboriginal experience. In a film that's not shy in its depiction of racist language and attitudes, the consequences of Koorine's ability to pass as white are explored.

This is uncomfortable viewing. Not just because of the language, nor the era. That 1957 is only slightly more than half again as far as 1996 is from today is a different kind of discomfort. There are.

The ABC has commissioned two new live-action children’s series, Aquarius Films’ Parent Up and Fremantle Australia’s The Pm’s Daughter.

Both supported by Screen Australia, the series will go into production this year, joining MaveriX, Itch season 2 and Hardball season 2 on ABC Me’s narrative drama slate.

A comedy action series for 8-13 year olds, Parent Up is created and executive produced by Justine Flynn (The Unlisted). It follows Yu Na and Min Park, who want more excitement in their lives. However, they don’t realise just how crazy their lives will become when they discover their once unremarkable parents are actually international spies and have disappeared in suspicious circumstances.

Writing with Flynn are Michelle Lim Davidson, Andrew Lee, Tiffany Zehnal, Melissa Lee Speyer, Tristram Baumber, Sophia Chung, Hyun Lee, Alice McCredie-Dando and David Park.

Directors will include Nick Verso, Chase Lee, Hyun Lee, Darlene Johnson, Neil Sharma and Flynn.

Sophie Hyde, pictured here on the set of ‘Animals’, has been nominated for two Adg Awards.

First-time feature directors Thomas Wright (Acute Misfortune), John Sheedy (H is for Happiness), Ben Lawrence (Hearts and Bones) and Natalie Erika James (Relic) will vie for the Australian Directors’ Guild (Adg) Award for Best Direction in a Feature Film ($1 million or over) against Sophie Hyde (Animals) and Wayne Blair (Top End Wedding).

Up in the $1 million or under category are Josephine Mackerras for Alice, Imogen Thomas for Emu Runner, Lucy Colman for Hot Mess, Luke Sullivan for Reflections In The Dust and Samuel Van Grinsven for Sequin In A Blue Room.

The Adg announced nominees for its annual awards today, with winners to be announced in Sydney at a ceremony October 19. A record 202 entries were received this year, up from 117 in 2019.

“At these challenging times, it is more important than ever that we come...

‘Ride Like A Girl’, which received development funding via Gender Matters: Brilliant Stories.

Back in December 2015, Screen Australia set itself a three-year target: by the end of the 2018-19 financial year, at least 50 per cent of projects to receive production funding should be from female-led creative teams.

At the same time, the agency rolled out a $5 million suite of initiatives under the umbrella ‘Gender Matters’. Each was designed to redress gender inequity more broadly: a female-led story development fund, Brilliant Stories; female-focused business support, Brilliant Careers; Better Deals, a matched distribution guarantee for the marketing of female-led films; and an attachment scheme for women.

Screen Australia also adjusted its assessment criteria, expressly noting that the gender of a project’s team may influence its funding decisions.

Three years on, and Screen Australia has exceeded its target. Fifty-six (56) per cent of projects funded over the last three years were considered ‘female-led’; that is the writer,...

Darlene Johnson at the Screen Forum (Photo credit: Patrick Huban).

The Australian International Screen Forum presented its inaugural scholarship, a placement with an American director on a Us film, to Indigenous filmmaker Darlene Johnson.

Toni Collette and editor Jill Bilcock each received the Pioneering Woman in Film award while Baz Luhrmann was presented with the Trailblazer award at the forum, which ran from March 19-22 at the Lincoln Centre in New York.

Johnson, who directed episodes of the ABC drama serial The Heights for Matchbox Pictures and For Pete’s Sake Productions, will get a three-month attachment on a film that is due to shoot in New York later this year. The forum organisers expect to confirm the title in the next few weeks.

Announcing the award, Australian International Screen Forum chairman Chris Beale said: “Darlene is an award-winning documentarian who is moving to narrative filmmaking. She came to our...

The cast of ‘The Heights’.

With the exception of flagship serials Home and Away and Neighbours, for the last few years, long-form adult drama has all but disappeared from our screens, replaced by high budget, short-run shows.

With that has also come a reduced number of training opportunities for emerging writers and directors, something that producers, writers and directors alike have lamented.

Given the landscape, it was somewhat of a surprise to see the ABC announce last June that it had commissioned a 30 x 30” serial drama in The Heights.

Produced by Matchbox Pictures and For Pete’s Sake Productions, The Heights is set in the fictional suburb of Arcadia Heights and explores the relationships, work lives and everyday challenges of six families living in a social housing tower and the rapidly gentrifying inner-city community that surrounds it.

The diverse ensemble cast includes Marcus Graham, Shari Sebbens, Roz Hammond, Fiona Press, Dan Paris,...

Roz Hammond and Bridie McKim in ‘The Heights’ (Photo: Ben King).

Roz Hammond rates her role in The Heights, the ABC drama serial from Matchbox Pictures and For Pete’s Sake Productions, as the best she’s ever had.

That’s a big call for the Waapa graduate who broke through as Cheryl, one of the “bitchy” bridesmaids in Paul J. Hogan’s Muriel’s Wedding in 1994.

Perhaps best known as a founding member of the cast in Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell, she has featured in a raft of comedies including Please Like Me, The Librarians, It’s a Date and Upper Middle Bogan. She has shown her dramatic chops in Jack Irish, Offspring and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.

Co-created by Warren Clarke and Que Minh Luu and set in the fictional inner-city neighbourhood of Arcadia Heights, The Heights explores the relationships between a public housing tower...

L-r: Amir Rahimzadeh, Phoenix Raei, Ze Winters, Jasmine Sadati, Yazeed Daher and Rasta Karami in ‘The Heights’ (Photo: Ben King)

After breaking through in Kriv Stenders’ Australia Day, Phoenix Raei landed roles in Mustangs Fc, Romper Stomper and Wentworth.

The Iranian-born actor who came to Australia when he was a kid still feels he is a relative unknown in the wider screen industry – but that could change this month after The Heights premieres on the ABC.

Raei plays Ash, who lives with his uncle Hamid (Amir Rahimzadeh) and his brother Kam (Yazeed Daher) in a social housing tower in the 30-episode serial produced by Matchbox Pictures and For Pete’s Sake Productions.

Co-created by Warren Clarke and Que Minh Luu and set in the fictional inner-city neighbourhood of Arcadia Heights, the drama explores the relationships between the tower’s residents and those who live in the adjoining, rapidly gentrifying community.

Mairi Cameron.

Mairi Cameron will shadow direct an episode of Hoodlum Entertainment’s Harrow with Geoff Bennett as part of the Australian Directors’ Guild’s (Adg) ongoing shadow directing program for female directors.

The initiative was created by the Adg with funding from Screen Australia’s Gender Matters: Brilliant Careers initiative. Other directors to have completed the program are Lucy Gaffy, Lisa Matthews, Darlene Johnson, Jane Eakin and Rebecca O’Brien.

Cameron’s feature debut The Second was released last year in theatres and on streaming service Stan, was nominated for the Aacta Award for Best Indie Film and Best Feature Film at the Screen Producers Australia Awards. Her 1999 short Milk was also selected for Cannes, and was pre-selected for an Academy Award.

The second season of ABC’s Harrow, which is co-produced with Disney’s ABC Studio’s International and stars Ioan Gruffudd, is shooting at the moment around Brisbane.

Jub Clerc.

All the talk about the need for structural and cultural change in the screen industry must be converted into in widespread action, according to Women in Film & Television (Wift) Australia.

“This year Wift Australia’s focus will be on changing systems,” says board member Megan Riakos on behalf of the board.

“For too long our industry has perpetuated structures that reflect wider gender inequity and disparity. Intersectionality means this hits some harder than others. Although there has been public sentiment that supports change, we believe that talk must be converted into widespread and decisive action.

“We must recognise that we as an Industry have the knowledge, intelligence and creativity to forge transformation. We need to stop asking the most vulnerable to bear the burden of this fight. We must understand that we created this system. It’s not natural. It’s not preordained. It can be changed.

‘Little J and Big Cuz’.

Ned Lander Media’s animated series Little J and Big Cuz is the winner of the inaugural Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network (Sdin) Award.

The Sdin Award was created to honour Australian producers and projects which have made a significant contribution to diversity and inclusion, on and off screen, within the Australian screen industry. Little J and Big Cuz, commissioned by Nitv, is the first animated series specifically targeted at Indigenous children aged 4-6.

The announcement was made at Screen Forever yesterday by Sdin chair Courtney Gibson.

“For decades Ned Lander has been producing screen works in complete creative collaboration with Indigenous screen practitioners, going right back to the feature Wrong Side of the Road, made with the bands No Fixed Address and Us Mob. The creation of the first-ever Australian animated series targeted to an Indigenous audience, Little J and Big Cuz, is a continuation of that collaborative approach,...

Sonia Mehrmand.

The Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network (Sdin) has announced the nominees for the inaugural Sdin Award, with the winner to be announced at Screen Forever.

The annual award has been created to honour Australian producers and projects which have made a significant contribution to diversity and inclusion, either on or off screen, within the Australian screen industry.

All Sdin member organisations – which include the guilds, federal and state screen agencies, the broadcasters and other business associations, as well as MediaRING, FreeTV and Aftrs – nominated up to three entries each to create a long list of candidates. The final six nominees were then whittled down by a panel of judges including Media Diversity Australia’s Marc Fennell, the chair of the Meaa’s Diversity Committee Bali Padda, Indigenous practitioner Darlene Johnson and director and disability advocate Fiona Tuomy.

The nominees are:

Neighbours’ first same-sex wedding, by Fremantle Media for Channel Eleven,...

Darlene Johnson. A new initiative from the National Association of Cinema Operators (Naco) and the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia (Mpdaa) will give two emerging Indigenous filmmakers the opportunity to attend Aimc 2016.. . Darlene Johnson is a writer/director from the Dunghutti clan from the Nsw mid-north coast. A graduate of Uts and Aftrs,.Johnson.s short films and documentaries have won numerous awards, including an Emmy nomination in 2001 (Best Documentary Stolen Generations). . She has two feature films currently in development, with Phillip Noyce attached as an Ep to one and David Gulpilil attached as a cast member and cultural advisor on the other. . Ian Ludwick is a Bulgun Warra man from Hopevale, Queensland. Formerly a policeman and paramedic,.Ludwick.turned to writing and producing in 2009.. He completed the Indigenous Producers Initiative with Screen Australia and an attachment to Arclight Films earlier this year. He also recently attended the Toronto...

Chasing Asylum. The first nominees for the 6th Aacta Awards have been announced, with the Australian Academy revealing those up for gongs in three categories: Best Feature Length Documentary, Best Short Animation and Best Short Fiction Film.

Nominees in feature film and television will be named later this year.

Under consideration for Best Feature Documentary is Eva Orner.s expose of Australian offshore detention, Chasing Asylum, and Dan Jackson.s debut In The Shadow of the Hill, which follows locals living in Rio de Janiero.s largest slum and their fight for justice.

They will vie against Nikolas Bird and Eleanor Sharp.s Remembering the Man, about couple Timothy Congriave and John Caleo — whose love story was the subject of feature film Holding the Man, and Snow Monkey, a portrait of daily life in Jalalabad, produced by Lizzette Atkins and directed by artist George Gittoes.

Up for the Best Short Animation gong is Joel Best,...

City Of Port Phillip Councillor Andrew Bond and Audience Choice Award winner Nikki Richardson.

The 2016 St Kilda Film Festival has wrapped up with 18 winners across all categories.

Death in Bloom, directed by Dael Oates, took out Best Short Film, while Nikki Richardson's We're Here Now won this year's Audience Choice Award.

Death in Bloom also nabbed Best Comedy and Best Achievement in Editing.

Red Rover's Brooke Goldfinch was awarded Best Director, and You Better Take Cover, directed by Harry Hayes, won Best Documentary.

The full list:

Best Short Film Winner

Death In Bloom

Director: Dael Oats

Producer: Jonas Maclallen

Screenplay: Dael Oats

Best Achievement In Cinematography Winner

Burak Oguz Saguner

Film: Driftwood Dustmites

Best Animation Winner

The Orchestra

Director: Mikey Hill

Producer: Melanie Brunt

Craft Award Winner

Little Boy Blue

Director: Nathan Keene

Producers: Will Faulkner, Joy Baines

Screenplay: Will Faulkner, Nathan Keene

Best Comedy Winner

Death In Bloom...

Tanna is based on a true story about a girl who runs away from an arranged marriage.

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Tanna, Sherpa and Peter Allen - Not the Boy Nex Door have taken top honours at the 2016 Australian Director's Guild Awards.

Jennifer Peedom has won Best Direction in a Documentary Feature at the Awards in Melbourne, in the same week as her film Sherpa passed $1 million at the local box office.

Hosted by Nazeem Hussain, the awards honoured the outstanding work over the past year of Australian directors working in film, television, music and advertising..

Other winners included Bentley Dean and Martin Butler, who won Best Direction in a Feature Film for Tanna..

The film was made in collaboration with the Yakel people of Tanna, Vanuatu.

Rachel Perkins won her second Adg Award, this time for Best Direction in a Telemovie for Redfern Now: Promise Me..

Best Direction in a TV Drama Series...

Tanna is based on a true story about a girl who runs away from an arranged marriage.

.

Tanna, Sherpa and Peter Allen - Not the Boy Nex Door have taken top honours at the 2016 Australian Director's Guild Awards.

Jennifer Peedom has won Best Direction in a Documentary Feature at the Awards in Melbourne, in the same week as her film Sherpa passed $1 million at the local box office.

Hosted by Nazeem Hussain, the awards honoured the outstanding work over the past year of Australian directors working in film, television, music and advertising..

Other winners included Bentley Dean and Martin Butler, who won Best Direction in a Feature Film for Tanna..

The film was made in collaboration with the Yakel people of Tanna, Vanuatu.

Rachel Perkins won her second Adg Award, this time for Best Direction in a Telemovie for Redfern Now: Promise Me..

Best Direction in a TV Drama Series...

Flickerfest has revealed the 53 films selected to screen as part of the festival's competitive program in its 25th anniversary year.

The films were chosen from more than 2300 entries.

This year.s official Australian Competition features 18 world premieres, six Australian premieres and 10 Nsw premieres..

Twenty-one female directors are represented across the official Australian competition.

The best of the australian films will be shown over seven sessions.

They will be competing for prizes across all areas of the filmmaking craft including the Academy Accredited Virgin Australia Award for Best Australian Film, the Canon Award for Best Direction and the Yoram Gross Award for Best Australian Animation.

Flickerfest is Australia.s only Academy accredited and BAFTA recognised festvial and runs from Friday January 8-17. .

Festival director Bronwyn Kidd, steering her 19th festival, said she was thrilled that Flickerfest was once again a platform for the Australia's most exciting, creative and talented short filmmakers.

Portuguese director Miguel Gomes. Arabian Nights has won the top award, the Sydney Film prize, at the 62nd Sydney Film Festival.

The 3-part opus, which draws on the folk tales One Thousand and One Nights to create a portrait of modern-day life in Portugal, took the $62,000 cash prize at the closing night awards at the State Theatre.

Jury president Liz Watts hailed a film of "ambition and political vision which confronts, frustrates, and spellbinds - and ultimately reminds us that cinema continues to be a powerful vehicle to examine the human condition..

Journalist Michael Ware and two-time Oscar winner Bill Guttentag received the $10,000 Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian documentary for Only the Dead; with a special mention to The Lost Aviator directed by Andrew Lancaster. .A Single Body directed and written by Sotiris Dounoukos won the best live action short award; Grace Under Water directed and produced by Anthony Lawrence...

Miguel Gomes’ three-volume epic wins eight on the closing night of the Sydney Film Festival.

Director Miguel Gomes and his three-volume 383-minute film Arabian Nights has won the $48,000 (A$62,000) Sydney Film Prize, it was announced on Sunday, the closing night of the 62nd Sydney Film Festival.

Journalist Michael Ware was awarded the $7,730 (A$10,000) Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary for Only the Dead, about his experiences in Afghanistan. The film was co-directed with Bill Guttentag.

Director Andrew Lancaster’s The Lost Aviator received a special mention for a family story of murder, love and aviation.

Jury president and Australian producer Liz Watts said Arabian Nights, which had its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, was a film of ambition and political vision which confronts, frustrates, and spellbinds – and ultimately reminds us that cinema continues to be a powerful vehicle to examine the human condition.

“A subject that is so timely – oppression and exploitation are at...

Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days on Earth and titles set for Cannes among Sydney Film Festival competiton contenders.

In an unusual move the Sydney Film Festival has included among its official competition contenders, the June 4 opening night film 20,000 Days on Earth, which digs deep into the life of Australian-born musician and artist Nick Cave and won the top prize for documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.

This year will also see the biggest number of Australian films in the competition. David Michôd’s The Rover will come fresh from Cannes and the other two are Ruin, which writer/directors Amiel Courtin-Wilson and Michael Cody filmed in Cambodia, and Fell, a debut film from Kasimir Burge that will have its world premiere at the annual event. Burge won a Crystal Bear at Berlin for his short Lily.

See below for the full list of the finalists in the seventh year of the A$60,000 ($56,000) competition.

Finishing off the...

The 61st Sydney Film Festival today announced 32 films to be featured in this year.s event (June 4-15) in advance of the full program launch on May 7.

The line-up includes the world premiere of The Redfern Story, 19 Australian premieres, 13 features, 11 documentaries and an eight-film retrospective on maverick American filmmaker Robert Altman. Altman.s son, filmmaker Michael Altman, will attend festival and introduce several of the Altman screenings.

Darlene Johnson.s The Redfern Story chronicles the volatile birth of the first all-Indigenous theatre company, the National Black Theatre. It features interviews with indigenous media pioneer Lester Bostock, writer Gerry Bostock, actor Lillian Crombie, activist-academic Gary Foley, academic Marcia Langton, actors Rachael Maza, Bryan Brown and Bindi Williams. .We are pleased to present this sneak preview of 32 of the 180-plus films in this year.s program,. said Festival Director Nashen Moodley. .We have gathered a selection of the best films from the...

Screen Australia has selected five teams to take part in this year's Springboard: Short Film Initiative and potentially receive $150,000 production funding.

The five directors - Christopher Weekes, Hannah Moon, Tom McKeith, Darlene Johnson and Liselle Mei - and their teams will now develop a short film script that will showcase their developed feature film screenplay. Three of the shorts will then receive $150,000 funding.

Weekes is perhaps the best known after making his debut feature Bitter & Twisted in 2008, which he followed by topping the influential Black List (which ranks Hollywood film executives. views on the best unproduced movie scripts) in 2009 with The Muppet Man. His Springboard feature project Pest Control is a family comedy about a city that gets overrun by monsters.

Hannah Moon's project Starfish, is a comedy, which she is co-writing with Robin Geradts-Gill and Stephen Sholl. Tom McKeith.s project Boxer is a thriller and is currently...

Australian director Phillip Noyce says he’s happy to be back in the Hollywood “selling machine” with his latest spy action thriller Salt, instead of having to find an audience for his films.

“After 10 years, I was feeling bruised and battered by having to work to find audiences for those [independent] films. It was almost like finding each audience member one by one, at each cinema, around Australia and the rest of the world,” Noyce told Encore.

Noyce said that it wasn’t the making of Rabbit Proof Fence, The Quiet American and Catch a Fire that left him bruised, but convincing people to see them.

“That’s Hollywood’s greatest achievement; getting people to see the movies they make. I was happy to be back in that selling machine; the chance to jump on a moving rollercoaster was irresistible.

“I’m not getting any younger, and I’ve been out...