News

Stephen Van Mil.s Impian Films will produce The Damned, a film based on the true story of two Western Australian teenagers who murdered a girl they had befriended.

Reg Cribb has written the screenplay based on his 2011 play. Andrew Lewis, who directed the play for the Black Swan State Theatre Company, will make his feature directing debut.

Lewis is associate professor at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts at Edith Cowan University. Cribb and Lewis received development funding from Screen West before Van Mil became involved.

Van Mil describes the subject as .confronting,. viewing it as an essay on disaffected young people.

The play is based on a case in 2006, looking at two16-year-old girls who lived in the town of Collie. They befriended a girl of the same age; the victim was strangled. The girls subsequently walked into police stations 250 km apart, confessed to the crime and...

The Eye Of The Storm recently won The Age Critics Award at Miff. Director Fred Schepisi spoke with Alice Terlikowski about his return to Australian storytelling, upcoming projects and the industry at large.

Roxanne, The Russia House and Six Degrees Of Separation, to name a few, are all under the belt of Australian director Fred Schepisi but it’s his latest work starring Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis that holds a particular significance to the Australian industry.

The 71-year-old director told Encore he’s been working on Australian stories for “quite a long time” but has always aimed to strike a balance between work in Hollywood and at home. The Eye Of The Storm is his first Australian film in 22 years, since Evil Angels – based on the story of Lindy Chamberlain.

“My generation grew up on very few Australian films. In most of the cinemas were American films but if...

Fred Schepisi is tipped to direct Icon's adaptation of The Drowner. The Impian and Icon co-production confirmed on its Facebook page that it was "getting very, very close to having a director" and linked to a report in Screen Daily about the appointment. Based on the novel by Robert Drewe,. The Drowner is a historical love story that follows a young engineer who travels from England to Western Australia to help build a pipeline from the coast to the gold fields. The film has received backing from ScreenWest and Screen Australia and has an estimated budget of $50 million. John Collee will pen the screenplay and the proposed cast includes Cate Blanchett, Emily Blunt, Liam Neeson, Barry Humphries and James McAvoy. Last month, the film's Facebook page...

The film adaptation of Tim Winton’s novel Dirt Music is “in good shape”, according to writer John Collee.

“We’ve now got a draft that works structurally really well. There are less and less changes between the drafts and we’re hoping to shoot next year,” Collee told Encore.

Having fluctuated through various stages of planning over the last six years, the film has a $20 million budget, with Russell Crowe attached to play the lead and Phillip Noyce to direct.

Collee (Happy Feet, Master and Commander) is also working on a $50 million feature, The Drowner, based on Robert Drewe’s story.

“The Drowner is at an earlier stage [compared to Dirt Music]; we’re still pulling apart the first draft and writing the second. I wouldn’t be surprised if it went into production later than 2011,” said Collee.

Collee’s latest international project, Creation, is released in Australia today (distributed by Icon Film). The film,...