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The cinematic landscape, littered as it is with saccharine tales of family bonding, occasionally coughs up a delightfully venomous hairball. Such is “Audrey,” a film that posits a rather startling thesis: sometimes, the greatest gift a family member can give is a prolonged, medically induced absence.

This Australian black comedy, dipped in the sharpest acid of satire, introduces us to the Lipsick family, a collection of loosely affiliated neuroses orbiting a teenage daughter, the titular Audrey.

When a rooftop mishap sends young Audrey into a coma, the film begins its gleeful, unsettling exploration of what happens when the supposed linchpin of a household is removed, only for everyone else to find their lives taking an unexpected, and frankly rather welcome, upward trajectory. It’s a premise designed to make one squirm with a mixture of discomfort and inappropriate mirth, and the film leans into this audacity with a poker face.

Apple TV+ was one of the latest giants in the business to make the shift to streaming and join the wars against Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Max, and Disney+. The platform has been the home for some incredible shows. It features ongoing hits like Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, and Severance, to cancelled projects like Time Bandits.

Earlier this year, Apple TV+ reported a loss of $1 billion in its streaming vertical (via Variety), but it still seems to be going strong in producing content. With over 45 million subscribers, the platform has a host of new shows to offer, with some incredible talent involved both in front and behind the camera. Here are 15 upcoming shows from Apple TV+ that have already been filmed.

1. Down Cemetery Road

Starting off, Emma Thompson’s thriller drama series Down Cemetery Road is one of the most anticipated shows from Apple TV+. The series, based on the book by Mick Herron,...

The innate vulgarity and impassioned realities of a toxic mother-daughter relationship are put on blast in the dark comedy film Audrey, a more relatable story than most of us may want to admit. Taking things a wild step further, Audrey plays with the idea that an unfulfilled stage mother can create a spoiled monster daughter, only to wish her headache-inducing creation was no longer around.

Directed by Natalie Bailey and written by Lou Sanz, Audrey follows has-been soap star, Ronnie Lipsick (Jackie van Beek) as she attempts to mold her impudent teenage daughter Audrey (Josephine Blazier) into the famed actress she always aspired to be. When Audrey suddenly falls into a coma, Ronnie does what any self-proclaimed "Mother of the Year" would do: she assumes Audrey's identity, subsequently reviving her previously dead acting dreams while posing as a 17-year-old.

Good Riddance to Audrey

4/5 Audrey ComedyDrama

Self-appointed Mother of the Year...

Ultra pitch black in tone, Audrey from debut feature filmmakers, director Natalie Bailey and writer Lou Sanz hits the sweet spot in sardonic Aussie humour from the opening scene, making no apologies whatsoever for tackling controversial family dynamics with blunt delivery. Like many working-class Antipodean comedy offerings, the setting is chaotic and the characters are sweary as they scramble around for purpose, but there is always a sense of united achievement after a battle is won. It is this heady mix that Audrey delivers in spades but with a deviant twist not for the easily offended.

Drama instructor and has-been TV actor Ronnie Lipsick (a delightful Jackie van Beek in full flow) continues to live her fame dream vicariously through her talented but wayward teenage daughter Audrey (Josephine Blazier) who is both spiteful and dismissive of the limelight her mother is trying to create for her. Ronnie’s full attention...

The 68 th BFI London Film Festival has announced the full programme line-up, which will be presented in cinemas and online, across the UK.

The Lff will present a vibrant and diverse programme of 253 features, shorts, series and immersive works from 79 countries, featuring 63 languages playing across the 12 days of the festival. This includes 112 works made by female and non-binary filmmakers – 44% of the programme.

World Premieres

From filmmakers and artists include: Steve McQueen’s Blitz which opens the festival, Ben Taylor’s Cunard Gala Joy starring Thomasin McKenzie, James Norton and Bill Nighy, the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation’s restoration Silent Sherlock, Darren Thornton’s Irish comedy film Four Mothers, spellbinding performance film from Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard The Extraordinary Miss Flower, thriller series A Thousand Blows from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, the latest documentary from Oscar®-winning directing duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin Endurance,...

Apple TV+ has rounded out the main cast of its upcoming series adaptation of the Mick Herron novel “Down Cemetery Road.”

Adeel Akhtar, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Tom Goodman-Hill, Darren Boyd, Tom Riley, Adam Godley, Sinead Matthews, Ken Nwosu, Fehinti Balogun, and Aiysha Hart have all been cast in the series.

They will appear alongside previously announced leads Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson.

The official description for the series states, “When a house explodes in a quiet Oxford suburb and a girl disappears in the aftermath, neighbor Sarah Tucker (Wilson) becomes obsessed with finding her and enlists the help of private investigator Zoë Boehm (Thompson). Zoë and Sarah suddenly find themselves in a complex conspiracy that reveals that people long believed dead are still among the living, while the living are fast joining the dead.”

Akhtar will appear as Hamza. Stewart-Jarrett will play Downey. Goodman-Hill has been cast as Gerard, and Boyd has been cast as C.

Jackie van Beek and Hannah Diviney star in Natalie Bailey’s feature debut, which explores a thorny taboo with gallows humour

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The family of the titular teenager in Audrey don’t literally pop champagne when she tumbles from the roof and falls into a coma, though they might as well have: this deliciously snarky black comedy makes it brutally clear they prefer it when she’s in a vegetative state, unable to give them grief.

The film mercilessly flogs the “we’re glad she’s in a coma” joke and yet it continues to be funny – partly because of the drollery of Lou Sanz’s script, which is filled with gallows humour; partly because of the pacing, which hits a good rhythm, feeling quick but never rushed; partly because of the cast, who are oddly endearing despite portraying people behaving very badly; and...

Filmfare Fame At Last

2022 global hit film, “Rrr” won the award for the best film in the Telugu language at the delayed Filmfare South awards. For their performances in “Rrr,” N.T.R. Jr and Ram Charan were named as winners in the best leading actor category and S.S. Rajamouli won best director.

In the Tamil category, “Ponniyin Selvan Part 1” took the best film award. Its director Mani Ratnam bagged the best director award. Kamal Haasan and Sai Pallavi were honored with the best actor (male) and best actor (female) for their performances in “Vikram” and “Gargi,” respectively.

The winner of the best film award in the Malayalam category was “Nna Thaan Case Kodu,” with its helmer Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval collecting the best director prize.

For Kannada cinema, Kiranraj K. was awarded the best director award for “777 Charlie,” while “Kantara” was named the best film.

The awards were instituted for Hindi-language...

“Memoir of a Snail,” directed by locally-born, Oscar-winning director Adam Elliot, has been set as the opening title of the Melbourne International Film Festival.

The festival runs Aug. 8-25 and is expected to comprise more than 250 titles. An early sneak peek, revealed Thursday, confirmed a high quality international and local selection.

These include Cannes Critics’ Week award winner “Blue Sun Palace”; double Sundance-winning semi biographical directorial debut “Didi,” by Sean Wang; Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man,” which earned Sebastian Stan the acting prize in Berlin; Australian-produced Imax presentation “Fungi: Web of Life”; Rooney Mara-starring “La Cocina”; Frederick Wiseman’s restaurant documentary “Menus Plaisirs – Les Troisgros”; Berlin prize-winner “My Favourite Cake”; Steve McQueen’s “Occupied City”; and Jodi Wille’s “Welcome Space Brothers.”

The lineup also includes “We Were Dangerous,” a feminist and comic directorial debut from Maori filmmaker Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu, that is executive produced by Taika Waititi.

Emma Thompson of Sense and Sensibility and Love Actually and Ruth Wilson of The Affair and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House have signed on to star in the Apple TV+ thriller series Down Cemetery Road, Deadline reports. The series is based on a novel by author Mick Herron, whose Slough House novels serve as inspiration for the Apple TV+ show Slow Horses that has been running for three seasons (Apple plans to keep it going for at least five) and has proven to be very successful for the streaming service.

Down Cemetery Road will tell the story of Sarah Tucker, who becomes obsessed with finding a neighbor girl who disappeared in the aftermath of a house explosion in a quiet Oxford suburb. After enlisting the help of private investigator Zoë Boehm in her quest, the pair find themselves in a complex conspiracy that reveals that...

Emma Thompson y Ruth Wilson protagonizan esta nueva serie de la plataforma de streaming.

Apple TV+ ha anunciado su nueva serie, “Down Cemetery Road”. Se trata de un thriller que adaptará la novela homónima del galardonado autor Mick Herron, que forma parte de su “Serie de Oxford”.

Cuando una casa explosiona en un tranquilo barrio de Oxford y como consecuencia desaparece una niña, la vecina Sarah Tucker se obsesiona con encontrarla y solicita la ayuda de la investigadora privada Zoë Boehm. Zoë y Sarah se topan de repente con una compleja conspiración que revela que las personas a las que se creía muertas desde hace mucho tiempo siguen entre los vivos, mientras que los vivos se unen rápidamente a los muertos.

“Down Cemetery Road” está protagonizada y producida por la ganadora de un Oscar, un BAFTA, un Globo de Oro y un Emmy Emma Thompson (“Sentido y Sensibilidad”), que interpreta...

Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson will headline Down Cemetery Road, an adaptation of the book by Slow Horses author Mick Herron.

Jackson Lamb may well be Gary Oldman’s greatest performance, and that is no mean feat given his prolific filmography. Slow Horses, an adaptation of the book series by Mick Herron, follows the misadventures of the staff who work at Slough House, the place where incompetent spies are sent to do menial admin work, before their become embroiled in various espionage escapades.

Lamb rules over them with an iron fist and a rapier wit, his disdain for his staff matched only by his propensity to break wind at inopportune moments, all masking the fact that he is by far the smartest person in any room. The drama has been a huge hit for Apple TV+, the fourth series was released late last year and the fifth series is expected...

Apple TV+ has ordered a series adaptation of Mick Herron’s “Down Cemetery Road” with Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson attached to star, Variety has learned.

This is now the second adaptation of Herron’s books to get the series treatment at Apple, with the other being the popular spy series “Slow Horses” starring Gary Oldman. Morwenna Banks, who is a writer on “Slow Horses,” will serve as lead writer on “Down Cemetery Road.”

The official logline of the new series states, “When a house explodes in a quiet Oxford suburb and a girl disappears in the aftermath, neighbor Sarah Tucker (Wilson) becomes obsessed with finding her and enlists the help of private investigator Zoë Boehm (Thompson). Zoë and Sarah suddenly find themselves in a complex conspiracy that reveals that people long believed dead are still among the living, while the living are fast joining the dead.”

Banks and Thompson...

Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson (Luther) have been tapped to star in Down Cemetery Road, a thriller series for Apple TV+ based on the book from Gold Dagger Award-winning author Mick Herron.

The project comes to Apple following the streamer’s work with Herron on Slow Horses, its hugely popular espionage drama based on his Slough House novels. Thus far airing three seasons, the show starring Gary Oldman has garnered multiple BAFTA nominations and has been renewed through Season 5.

A writer on that series, Morwenna Banks, will serve as lead writer and exec producer of Down Cemetery Road. The show centers on Sarah Tucker (Wilson), who becomes obsessed with finding a neighbor girl who disappeared in the aftermath of a house explosion in a quiet Oxford suburb. After enlisting the help of private investigator Zoë Boehm (Thompson) in her quest, the pair find themselves...

While studio-backed crowdpleasers tend to dominate the headlines generated by the SXSW Film & TV Festival (like rowdy opener “Road House” and steamy closer “The Idea of You”), this year’s festival was chock-a-block with smaller offerings that a) delighted audiences and b) are still looking for distributions deals so that the may delight still more audiences. These titles run the gamut: debuts and follow-up features, narrative films and documentaries, comedies and horror joints, bonafide award winners and seemingly instant cult classics, and at least one film that hinges on the possibilities of “Grand Theft Auto.”

And while it’s still early days, given the incredible assortment of films still looking for homes, we can’t help but tout their allure to all interested buyers. These aren’t just the best available films from SXSW, they’re some of the very best of the fest, full stop, and wider audiences deserve to see them,...

Exclusive: The CW, Roku and Australia’s Stan are working up Good Cop/Bad Cop, a comedic crime procedural with Jeff Wachtel’s Future Shack Entertainment and Jungle Entertainment.

Good Cop/Bad Cop stars Gossip Girls alumna Leighton Meester in her return to the CW, Clancy Brown (Dexter: New Blood) and Australian actor Luke Cook (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina). The series comes from writer John Quaintance (Will & Grace) and marks the latest international co-production for Stan, The CW and Roku, all of which have identified the model as core to their strategies.

Cook and Meester play a brother-sister detective team in a small Pacific Northwest police force who must contend with colourful residents, a serious lack of resources, their very complicated dynamic with each other and their police chief, Big Hank (Clancy Brown), who happens to be their father.

Production on the original series begins soon in Queensland, Australia, with Jungle Entertainment...

When we first meet Ronnie and Cormack Lipsick (Jackie van Beek and Jeremy Lindsay Taylor), the Australian couple has respectively reached what seems like the most miserable depths of female and male existence. She feels her dreams were stolen from her when an unwanted pregnancy forced her to abandon her acting career and devote her life to traumatizing her eldest daughter. And in an equally tragic turn of events, he can’t get an erection without jerking off into a cornucopia of increasingly elaborate sex toys.

It’s a bleak state of affairs that’s only made worse by the couple’s fraying relationships with their two teenage daughters. Audrey (Josephine Blazier) responds to her mother’s demands to become “an actress or dancer or voiceover artist” with the same enthusiasm that any high schooler puts into a task being forced upon them. Audrey’s apathy for her extracurricular activities...

It’s so hard to crack the black comedy nut, which can shatter with too little or too much earnestness, trauma, chuckles, and/or heavy thematic considerations. Gasps and giggles are needed in perfect balance to keep the pressure on without fragmenting the object, and it’s a trick “Audrey” pulls off with seeming ease. Broad, to be sure, but razor sharp and thematically consistent throughout its tight 92-minute runtime, the film by director Natalie Bailey is a surprising delight with both its heart and head in the right place.

Continue reading ‘Audrey’ Review: Aussie Black Comedy Brings Both Gasps & Giggles [SXSW] at The Playlist.

New Zealand’s funniest export Jackie Van Beek returns to SXSW atop the cast of “Audrey,” an Australian dark comedy that is headed to SXSW.

Van Beek, whose 2018 “The Breaker Upperers,” was a previous SXSW hit, portrays a forgotten former soap star whose career and life have been derailed by motherhood and suburban boredom. But when an accident puts her 18-year-old child in a coma, the woman takes on her daughter’s identity and gets a second chance at the life she actually wanted.

Other cast also include: Jeremy Lindsay Taylor (“Puberty Blues,” “The Diplomat”), Josephine Blazier (“True History of the Kelly Gang”) and disability advocate and actress Hannah Diviney (“Latecomers”).

“What begins as a light, sex-fuelled comedy about family soon takes a twisted journey into horror as, like a classic Greek tragedy, our protagonists decide that the only way to find happiness is to destroy their firstborn,” says director Natalie Bailey.

Australia is among the most represented countries outside of the US in the initial line-up for this year's SXSW Film and TV Festival, with Natalie Bailey’s 'Audrey', Jon Bell's 'The Moogai', and Jack Clark and Jim Weir's 'Birdeater' among the films selected.

The post ‘Audrey’, ‘The Moogai’, ‘Birdeater’ in SXSW line-up appeared first on If Magazine.

March fest announces multiple competition sections.

SXSW announced on Wednesday that Netflix series 3 Body Problem from Game Of Thrones co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss is the festival’s opening night TV premiere, while Universal’s action comedy The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt is the centrepiece screening.

Top brass at the Austin, Texas, festival (March 8-16) also unveiled feature and short competitions and Midnighters and Global sections, as well as select titles from other categories and Xr Experience for the 31st edition.

Headliners selections include world premieres of Pamela Adlon’s Babes starring Ilana Glazer,...

The SXSW Film & TV Festival said Wednesday that Universal’s The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling will serve as the 2024 edition’s Centerpiece film, and Netflix’s 3 Body Problem from David Benioff, D. B. Weiss and Alexander Woo will open the fest’s opening-night TV premiere.

The news comes as the festival, whose 31st edition runs March 8-16 in Austin, unveiled first titles in its Feature and Short Competitions, Midnighters, Global and Xr Experience categories. See the list below, which includes berths for the world premiere of Pamela Adlon’s Babes, the Daisy Ridley-starring Magpie, Prentice Penny’s docuseries Black Twitter, Season 3 of Hacks and the final season of Star Trek: Discovery.

Organizers said today that more titles, including the opening- and closing-night films, will be announced early next month across Headliner, Narrative Feature Competition, Documentary Feature Competition, Narrative Spotlight, Documentary Spotlight, Visions, Midnighter, Global, 24 Beats Per Second,...

The 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival has announced its lineup, with Netflix’s splashy sci-fi series 3 Body Problem opening the fest and the Ryan Gosling and Emily Bunt action comedy The Fall Guy acting as a centerpiece screening.

David Benioff and Dan Weiss are behind 3 Body Problem, based on the book of the same name. David Leitch directed the Universal feature about a Hollywood stuntman (Gosling) who is tasked with tracking down the star of the latest movie he is working on.

The Pamela Adlon movie Babes will also act as a centerpiece screening. The narrative competition features include Crystal Moselle’s latest, The Black Sea, and Barbie Ferreira starrer Bob Trevino Likes It. Elsewhere in the lineup are a Cheech and Chong doc, Tommy Dorfman’s directorial debut, Lilly Singh comedy Doin’ It, and My Dead Friend Zoe, exec produced by NFL star Travis Kelce.

The film...

Melvin Montalban and Natalie Bailey.

Short films, music videos and Tvc director Melvin Montalban will make his TV debut on The Unusual Suspects, Aquarius Films’ four-part heist caper commissioned by Sbs.

Natalie Bailey, whose recent credits include helming three episodes of Avenue 5, Armando Iannucci’s HBO comedy starring Hugh Laurie and Run, an HBO series starring and executive produced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, will direct the other two episodes.

Scripted by Vonne Patiag (Halal Gurls), Jessica Redenbach and Roger Monk and set in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, the plot revolves around the theft of a $10 million necklace from self-made Filipina businesswoman Roxanne Waters’ home during her twins’ birthday party,

The ensuing police investigation exposes hidden rivalries, shady business deals and forbidden affairs. No one is safe from suspicion, including socialite Sara Beasley whose life is crumbling fast, and her long-suffering nanny, Evie De La Rosa, a godmother of sorts for other Filipino domestic workers.

Baz Luhrmann.

A new feature film from Baz Luhrmann, set in a small Australian country town, is among the 18 projects to recently receive story development funding from Screen Australia.

The agency announced today it will share $620,000 between 11 films, five TV series and two online projects.

These projects come from both the existing Premium and Generate development funds. Generate Fund is for lower budget projects with an emphasis on new and emerging talent, or experienced talent wanting to take creative risks. The Premium Fund is for higher budget projects of ambition and scale from successful screen content makers.

Projects pitched for Premium Plus funds – the additional development funding the agency announced in response to Covid-19 – are still being assessed.

Screen Australia head of development Nerida Moore said: “With many productions temporarily halted it is more important than ever for us to support the development of Australian stories for all platforms. I...

Veep creator Armando Iannucci will executive produce a new film about amateur Sumo wrestling, which is a sentence I never thought I’d have to type. The comedy Sumo tells the story of an overweight kid who trains for the Us Sumo Open, with Natalie Bailey – who has worked with Iannucci on Avenue 5 – set to direct and Death of […]

The post ‘Sumo’ Comedy Coming From ‘Veep’ Creator Armando Iannucci appeared first on /Film.

France, Germany, Scandinavia among buyers.

Cinetic Sales Group and EyeSteelFilm have announced sales on the Sundance World Documentary Competition entry Influence ahead of its first Efm screening on Friday (21).

Rights to the story of Lord Tim Bell, and the notorious political campaigns masterminded by his PR firm Bell Pottinger have gone in France and Germany (Arte), Scandinavia (NonStop Entertainment), Canada (Documentary Channel), and Africa (eTV).

Talks are ongoing with distributors in the Us and UK on the feature from South African filmmakers Richard Poplak and Diana Neille. After he established Bell Pottinger in 1987, the PR venture became one of the...

Rocket Science is selling the project at the Efm.

Armando Iannucci is reuniting with Death Of Stalin and Intouchables producer Yann Zenou on coming of age theatrical feature comedy Sumo, directed by Natalie Bailey. Iannucci will act as executive producer on the film, which Rocket Science is selling at the Efm.

The producers are Emily Leo and Oliver Roskill alongside Ado Yoshizaki Cassuto and Gianluca Chakra. The team has fully developed the project and will be producing the film under their respective companies: Yze, Wild Swim, Record Player, Ndf International and Front Row Filmed Entertainment.

Sumo follows the story of Jonah,...

Veep creator Armando Iannucci is joining forces with Intouchables and Death Of Stalin producer Yann Zenou on a coming-of-age comedy set in the world of amateur Sumo wrestling.

Iannucci will act as executive producer and will be joining fellow BAFTA-winning producers Emily Leo and Oliver Roskill as well as Ado Yoshizaki Cassuto and Gianluca Chakra.

Also joining the team is Australian director Natalie Bailey who has collaborated with Iannucci on HBO’s TV show Avenue 5 and BBC’s The Thick Of It. Rocket Science is handling worldwide sales at the European Film Market. The aim is for a theatrical release, according to the partners.

The film follows the story of Jonah, a silver tongued and overweight kid with low self-esteem who meets Hana, a Japanese female janitor at his school – and an ex Sumo wrestler. Along with a pedantic and friendless building manager, the unlikely trio set about building a Dohjo,...

“Veep” creator Armando Iannucci has teamed with “Intouchables” and “Death of Stalin” producer Yann Zenou on a coming-of-age theatrical feature comedy set in the world of amateur sumo wrestling. Rocket Science is handling worldwide sales at the European Film Market.

Iannucci will act as executive producer. Other producers, alongside Zenou, on the project are Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill, Ado Yoshizaki Cassuto and Gianluca Chakra. The team has fully developed the project and will be producing it under their respective companies – Yze, Wild Swim, Record Player, Ndf International and Front Row Filmed Entertainment.

“Sumo” follows the story of Jonah, a silver tongued and overweight kid with low self-esteem who meets Hana, a Japanese female janitor at his school – and an ex-sumo wrestler. Along with a pedantic and friendless building manager, this unlikely trio set about building a “dohjo” where they train for the U.S. Sumo Open.

American Japanese actor Suzy Nakamura...

‘How to Stay Married’

Los Angeles-based Dynamic Television has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to Princess Pictures and Pablo Pictures’ comedy How to Stay Married.

Based on an episode of It’s a Date, the eight-part show created and written by Peter Helliar follows Helliar and Lisa McCune as Greg and Em Butler, who have been married for 14 years.

Things have become a bit stale and when Em takes on a new job and Greg loses his, they get more change than they bargained for. An unexpected house guest and meddlesome neighbors add chaos to the challenge of holding the marriage together. The cast includes Darren Gilshenan, Phil Lloyd and Nikki Britton.

Natalie Bailey was the lead director on the show produced by Jess Leslie, with Andrea Denholm and Emma Fitzsimons as the EPs. The series premieres on Network Ten next month.

Dynamic TV will launch sales at the Mipcom market in Cannes next week.

Magna Szubanski in 'Three Summers'..

Ben Elton.s Three Summers will make its world premiere at the upcoming Melbourne International Film Festival (Miff), screening as the Centrepiece Gala..

Writer-director Elton shot the ensemble comedy, which stars Robert Sheehan, Rebecca Breeds, Michael Caton, Magda Szubanski, Deborah Mailman, Jacqueline McKenzie and John Waters, last year in Western Australia. It was produced by Sue Taylor and Michael Wrenn..Set over three summers at a fictional folk music festival in Wa, the film follows two musicians (Sheehan and Breeds) as they fall in love..

.It.s a great thrill and also a great honour to have Three Summers selected as this year.s Miff Centrepiece Gala Presentation,. said the writer-director..

.I cannot think of a better start for our movie than to be centre stage at this famous festival, which is such a true champion of Australian filmmaking. It.s also very...

Jane Turner, Marg Downey, Glenn Robbins, Gina Riley, Magda Szubanski, Michael Veitch, Shane Jacobson and Stephen Curry are matching wits in a new weekly sketch comedy which the producers see as the beginning of a franchise.

Commissioned by The Comedy Channel, Open Slather also features a dozen rising stars on the comedy circuit: Ben Gerrard, Ben Lomas, Dave Eastgate, Demi Lardner, Emily Taheny, George H. Xanthis, Hannah Bath, Holly Austin, Ilai Swindells, Jay K Cagatay, Laura Hughes and Miles O.Neil.

Filmed in Melbourne with a live studio audience, the show takes aim at popular culture, politics, sport, music and media. Among the likely targets: Tony Abbott, reality shows such as The Voice and the soon-to-conclude Mad Men.

The 20-part series is being produced by McWaters Productions, marking the third collaboration between Kath & Kim.s Rick McKenna and Chris Lilley.s producing partner Laura Waters.

McKenna first got the idea...