Film
Cast Mates: Australian actors in Hollywood and at home by Sam Twyford-Moore
Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters: Australia’s first female filmmaking team by Mandy Sayer
Why on earth should Australian filmmakers want to try replicating Hollywood? No one can do Hollywood as well as Hollywood can, and the attempts to emulate it have usually, perhaps inevitably, led to flavourless or otherwise misbegotten enterprises. I know that this is the era of international co-productions, and that where the money comes from is undoubtedly influential, but where the creative personnel come from is surely still more so. I want to argue for the cultural significance of the small-scale filmmaking that doesn’t depend on US funding and thereby isn’t subject to the sorts of compromise that such involvement may entail.
... (read more)In 2004, Somersault, a drama of youthful coming to terms with life’s challenges, scooped the pool at the Australian Film Institute’s annual awards. It was a melancholy comment on the state of the local industry that no other films could compete with this affecting but scarcely remarkable work. How different the situation will be in 2009.
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