News

Screen Producers Australia hopes to reach agreement with the other major guilds on a new scheme for low budget features within the next few months.

Spa is proposing that all participants- producers, directors, writers, cast and crew- would receive 50% of their minimum award fees, reinvest the balance and thus share in the potential profits.

The scheme would apply to features costing less than $1.5 million which would not be eligible for Screen Australia funding but could qualify for the producer offset.. Producers would pay the employees' tax obligations based on the minimum rates.

The aims are to boost the level of feature production, which has barely changed in 30 years; enable cheaper films to be made on a far more professional basis; and provide a pathway for a new generation of writers and talent.

Owen Johnston, Spa.s manager, commercial and industrial affairs, gave If an update on the scheme today after...

Fans of Sherlock’s Molly – played by Louise Brealey – who are looking for a fix between series will be happy to learn she’s playing a key role in Tammy Riley-Smith’s new indie, Delicious, which features a romance between an aspiring chef (Nico Rogner) and Brealey’s troubled young woman. Check out the first trailer for the film below. The plot sees aspiring French cook Jacques Fournier (Rogner) arriving in London after the death of his mother. He’s convinced that renowned and irascible British chef Victor (Adrian Scarborough) is the father he never knew. Jacques locates Victor's restaurant and pleads with him for an opportunity to work in his kitchen. Having proven his culinary skills, Jacques sets up home and soon happens on his eccentric neighbours: the feisty septuagenarian Patti (Sheila Hancock), and the sad, waif-like Stella (Brealey) who shows little interest in Jacques and even less in eating food.

Albert Serra and Pawel Pawlikowski are among 23 European film-makers who will be presenting their films in person as part of European Film Promotion’s (Efp) Opening Doors programme at this year’s Busan International Film Festival (Oct 3-13).

Catalonian filmmaker Serra will travel to the South Korean festival for his Golden Leopard winner Story Of My Death, while Polish director Pawlikowski will introduce Ida, his first feature shot in his native Poland, which won a Fipresci prize on its world premiere in Toronto last week.

At last week’s Gdynia Film Festival, Ida was named the Golden Lion Grand Prix for Best Film. The award went to Pawlikowski and his producers Ewa Puszczynska and Piotr Dziecol of Lodz-based Opus Film. There were also prizes for the lead actress Agata Kulesza and the film’s cinematography and art direction.

Efp is supporting five European film-makers in Busan, who will compete for the festival’s new Flash Forward Audience...

The 18th Busan International Film Festival (Biff) has announced its full line-up of 301 films from 70 countries with 95 world premieres and 42 international premieres.

Running Oct 3-12, the festival will open with the world premiere of Bhutanese film Vara: A Blessing, directed by Buddhist monk Khyentse Norbu, who formerly served as technical advisor to Bernardo Bertolucci on Little Buddha.

Biff will close with the world premiere of Korean film The Dinner, directed by Kim Dong-hyun whose Hello, Stranger (2007) won Asian Cinema Fund (Acf) post-production support and won the 12th Biff’s Netpac Award.

New Market Incentive

The Asian Film Market is launching new incentives for buyers and sellers participating from this year.

Market head Jay Jeon said: “With an aim to being more productive and bring more Asia-focused development in future, we are going to offer indirect support with flight and accommodations to buyers who pick up films at the Asian Film Market.

“We’ll be giving...

The Brotherhood of Tears

Jérémie Renier ("Atonement," "In Bruges") has joined Jean-Baptiste Andrea's concept-driven thriller "The Brotherhood of Tears."

Renier stars as an unemployed cop and single father caught up in a bad situation. When Gabriel accepts the offer to deliver a suitcase, he crosses paths with various strange people. [Source: Variety]

Delicious

Tammy Riley-Smith will make her feature directorial debut on the British indie dark comedy/romance "Delicious". Michael Price will produce and shooting kicks off in December in London.

Louise Brealey ("Sherlock") and Nico Rogner ("Looking for Simon") star in the story of a passionate chef who resorts to extreme measures to get an obsessive dieter to eat good food. [Source: THR]

The Lost Tree

Michael Madsen, Lacey Chabert, Scott Grimes and Clare Kramer will star alongside Thomas Ian Nicholas in Brian A. Metcalf's horror/drama "The Lost Tree." Shooting kicks off next month in Los Angeles.

Nichols plays a...

Right now, she’s probably best known as lovelorn lab worker Molly Harper on Sherlock (or for her small role in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), but Louise Brealey has just scored one of the lead roles in Tammy Riley-Smith’s dark romantic comedy Delicious.Riley-Smith, who has shifted from Working Title executive to short film writer-director, is now stepping up for her first feature, which is being described as Chocolat crossed with Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down. Fifty Ladles Of Grey, anyone?Looking For Simon’s Nico Rogner will star alongside Brealey in the story of a passionate chef whose love for food extends to forcing an excessive dieter to eat by extreme methods. Riley-Smith wrote the script and has dragooned in Sherlock co-composer Michael Price to step from behind the keyboard to act as producer on the movie.The cameras will crank this December in London. Brealey...