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Writer-director David Vincent Smith is poised to make his feature debut, with his project Burden awarded $750,000 in production funding via Screenwest’s West Coast Visions initiative.

Burden, produced by No Labels Media, is described as tense family drama about ordinary people dealing with extraordinary circumstances.

The film explores themes of mental health and addiction as it challenges audiences to ponder the question; “How far would you go to save someone you love?”

Smith has worked on swathe of short films and music videos over the last decade, including We Were Here which won four Wa Screen Awards, and is a former recipient of Screenwest’s Feature Navigator program.

His script The Jesus Machine was shortlisted for the Australian Writers’ Guild’s John Hinde Award in 2019.

“I feel incredibly honoured to receive West Coast Visions from Screenwest, who have always been so supportive of my filmmaking. I’m so proud to...

The universal subject matter of Sam Lara and Cathy Henkel’s documentary Laura’s Choice has been recognised by distributor Off The Fence, which has picked up the project for international sales.

The film details the life and death of Laura Henkel, a 90-year-old that has decided she wants to end her life on her own terms, and asks her daughter Cathy and granddaughter Sam, both filmmakers, to document the process.

Developed through Virgo Productions, in collaboration with Factor 30 Films, the documentary was produced by Lara, Cathy Henkel, Ryan Hodgson and Melissa Kelly, with Chris Haws on board as executive producer.

Head of acquisitions Loren Baxter said the company was “thrilled” to be a part of the film’s journey.

“Sam and Cathy have created such a special film that will resonate with so many audiences around the world,” she said.

Henkel said the project was well suited to the distributor.

The enduring legacy of Laura Henkel will be brought into focus this week via the work of her descendants as Cathy Henkel and Sam Lara’s documentary Laura’s Choice premieres on the ABC.

Told across two nights, the documentary explores the family experience of the three generations of women coming to terms with Laura’s wish to end her life on her own terms.

Developed through Virgo Productions, in collaboration with Factor 30 Films, the documentary was produced by Lara, Cathy Henkel, Ryan Hodgson and Melissa Kelly, with Chris Haws on board as executive producer.

The project has already received acclaim through its development, both locally and nationally, having been awarded the 2019 Brian Beaton Award and last year’s inaugural Hot Docs prize at the Australian International Documentary Conference.

Aidc screened Laura’s Choice this year, prior to which it was shown at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival.

Sam Lara and Cathy Henkel’s assisted dying documentary Laura‘s Choice and Nickolas Bird and Eleanor Sharpe’s sports biopic Phil Liggett: The Voice of Cycling will form part of the Australian International Documentary Conference’s (Aidc) public access program.

The Australian films will be shown alongside international titles such as 76 Days, Kirsten Johnson’s Dick Johnson is Dead, David France’s Welcome to Chechnya, and Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott’s The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel in this year’s new non-fiction section. Johnson and France, keynote speakers at this year’s conference, will participate in conversation following the screening of their films.

Running from February 28 until March 11 at Melbourne’s Acmi the schedule also includes screenings of Days Of Cannibalism, Collective, The Painter And The Thief, MLK/FBI, Cunningham 3D, The Mystery of D.B. Cooper, Jia Zhangke’s Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns...

Short film Judas Collar was among the star performers at the Wa Screen Culture Awards yesterday, taking out five categories at the inaugural event.

Held as a conclusion to the Revelation Perth International Film Festival, the awards recognise new, established, and emerging screen practices across 18 divisions.

Alison James’ story of a tracking device known as a Judas Collar that captures the journey and betrayal of a feral camel in Australia’s Outback added to its inclusion on the long list for the Academy Award for short film last year, winning each of its nominated fields, including Innovation in Short Film or Animation.

James told If innovation was at the heart of her film, which contains no dialogue and involved helicopter stunt work in the remote outback.

“There’s no road map for how to make a film like this,” she said.

“We were filming camels without ropes, so we had...

Ben Mortley, Jaclyn Hewer and Antony Webb.

Writer-director Antony Webb and producer Jaclyn Hewer’s Carmentis has won the $5,000 CinefestOz Short Film Prize.

It’s the first year the festival has presented shorts awards, with Carmentis beating out Carrie’s Doing Great, I Want to Make a Film About Women and The Immortal for the top gong.

The sci-fi short follows a grief-stricken miner (Ben Mortley) who finds himself injured on the desolate planet ‘Carmentis’ and must overcome his personal demons in order to survive. It was previously selected for the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, and recently screened as part of Fantasia Festival.

“We are so proud to have won the first inaugural short film prize,” Webb and Hewer said.

“CinefestOZ is a festival that has become an essential part of the fabric for the Australian screen industry and we couldn’t be more excited to accept such a prestigious award.

Zak Hilditch.

After trying to find ways to reconfigure Airborne, a thriller set during a mid-flight pandemic, Zak Hilditch has given up, conceding Covid-19 is far more lethal and scarier than the scenario he envisaged.

The filmmaker had been developing the project formerly known as Celestial Blue since 2017, initally with his These Final Hours producer Liz Kearney, later joined by US producer Ross Dinerstein.

Backed by XYZ Films, he planned to shoot in Bulgaria. At an Australians in Film webinar with Ben Young and Natalie Erika James in May, he said: “I’ve had to rewrite the entire film because the fantastical virus that happens on that flight is nothing compared to what has actually happened.”

Today, however, at a Director’s Spotlight session at CinefestOZ in Busselton, he said: “It’s too much of a minefield. The time is not right and I’m not interested in it any more.

Sam Lara and Cathy Henkel.

Sam Lara and Cathy Henkel’s documentary Laura’s Choice won the inaugural Hot Docs Prize from last week’s Australian International Documentary Conference (Aidc) in Melbourne, as well as a Doc Edge festival and forum pass.

The film explores the family experience of three generations of women coming to terms with a radical approach to dying, and was pitched as part of Aidc’s FACTory Pitch program.

The Hot Docs prize involves travel support to attend Toronto’s Hot Docs International Documentary Conference in May, and the filmmakers will also receive a complimentary festival and forum pass to New Zealand’s Doc Edge.

Laura’s Choice also won Screenwest’s annual Brian Beaton Award in 2019, awarded social impact projects that need further support to reach their full potential, and has received development funding from Screenwest.

Director and producer Lara said: “We are completely blown...

‘No Visible Trauma’.

The Australian International Documentary Conference (Aidc) has announced 18 feature documentary and factual series projects that take part in its revamped FACTory pitching forum in March.

This year the FACTory will feature separate Forum pitches divided by genre categories, alongside a New Talent pitch, and a Rough Cut pitch.

The restructure has resulted in the largest ever number of FACTory projects accepted for pitching, with 18 projects spanning 12 different countries of production, including Canada, China, and India.

Producer and director teams in each Forum category and the New Talent pitch will present their projects in open forum sessions to curated groups of buyers, commissioners and distributors during Aidc 2020. Forum and New Talent pitches will be open to all Aidc pass-­holders, while Rough Cut sessions will be accessible by decision makers only.

All projects in FACTory 2020 will also be eligible to win pitch prizes, including:

● A complete opening titles...

The award recipients.

Screenwest has named Brooke Silcox and Mat de Koning’s 29 Years Eight Days and Sam Lara and Cathy Henkel’s Laura’s Choice the joint recipients of the 2019 Brian Beaton Award.

The award is awarded annually to a filmmaker or filmmakers with social impact projects that need further support to reach their full potential.

de Koning and Silcox’s 29 Years Eight Days later looks at the rise of a late Western Australian artist and his experience of epilepsy.

Lara and Henkel’s Laura Choice follows three generations of women coming to terms with a radical approach to dying.

Each team will receive $8,000 in production, development and outreach campaign funding for their social impact projects.

The award honours the contribution the late Brian Beaton made to the screen industry in Western Australia as a documentary filmmaker. Beaton was an executive producer at Artemis, and worked on projects such...