News

Former Another World actress Carmen Duncan passed away on February 3 after battling cancer for years. She was 76.

Duncan was born on July 7, 1942, in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. She graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (Nida) in Sydney in 1961.

Her career included films such as Harlequin (1980) and Turkey Shoot, as well as staples of Australian television, such as You Can't See 'Round Corners, the cop shows Division 4 and Homicide, soap opera Number 96, and television classics such as The Young Doctors and Skyways.

Duncan was nominated for an Australian Film Institute (AFI) award in 1980 for her work in Harlequin. But it was on television where Duncan perfected the art of playing sophisticated, independent and successful women.

In the 1980s Duncan moved to the United States and conquered the world of daytime television, securing the role of businesswoman Iris Carrington Wheeler in the long-running soap opera Another World.

Yiana Pandelis and Reece Noi (Photo credit: Ben Mezups)

Yiana Pandelis was 14 when she did her first acting workshop at Melbourne’s Active Performance Studios.

Her performance made a lasting impression on one of the attendees, casting director Cinzia Coassin, who was amazed to discover afterwards that Yiana is hearing impaired.

So years later when Coassin received the script for Unsound, she immediately thought of Yiana as ideal for the co-lead Finn, a young woman who is hearing impaired and undergoing the difficult process of transitioning to male.

After reading the script by Ally Burnham, a Nida graduate who received funding from Screen Australia’s Gender Matters Brilliant Stories program, Pandelis did several self-tests and auditioned for a previous director in Melbourne last year.

Development took longer than the producer Tsu Shan Chambers expected, with Screen Australia’s support on the script, and Ian Watson took over as the director.

(L-r) Tsu Shan Chambers, Martine Delaney, Chryssy Tintner, Jess Orcsik, Ally Burnham and Christine Anu.

Game of Thrones’ Reece Noi and newcomer Yiana Pandelis are playing the leads in Unsound, a quirky romantic drama now shooting in Sydney.

Directed by Ian Watson, and scripted by Ally Burnham, the plot follows Noi as Noah, a disillusioned musician who quits the band and returns to his mother’s home.

After clashing with his mother Angela (Paula Duncan) over old wounds, Noah seeks solace elsewhere and is caught up in the vibrant, passionate life of Finn (Pandelis), a young trans man.

Finn, who only speaks Auslan, runs a centre and nightclub for his deaf community. Despite their differences, the two become closer but with no shared language to fall back on, they risk hurting each other.

The cast includes Todd McKenney as Lewis, Finn’s father, Christine Anu as Moniqua, a fiery singer...

The Australian beachhead in Los Angeles is growing, with an actors’ training program based Down Under set to expand. The Australian Film & Television Academy (Tafta), founded by actors John Orcsik and Paula Duncan, has for several years operated a training program that brought Aussie actors to L.A. for a 10-week immersion. Beginning in September it will open its doors in a new location with an expanded course list that caters, in part, to local talent. The school is part of a growing Australian presence in Los Angeles. The recently formed Australian Theatre Company just completed a successful run of “Holding the Man,” a play that was produced in part with a successful crowdfunding campaign. The company expanded its appeal beyond expat Aussies, and Tafta is hoping for the same success. Los Angeles has no shortage of actors’ training programs, but none offer the kind of Australian rigor and frankness of Tafta,...