• Award-winning writer, director and producer Chris Fitchett has been confirmed as the AFC's new Director, Film Development.


• Congratulations to all the nominees and winners of the 2005 IF, Australian Film Institute, Film Critics Circle of Australia and AWGIE awards. The AFC is proud to have supported many of these films and their makers.


• The Australian films The Proposition, Jewboy and Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst have been selected to screen at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, which runs 19-29 January in Park City, Utah. Also selected were the Australian shorts Clara and The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello.


• Respected Australian director Phillip Noyce received the National Film and Sound Archive's 2005 Ken G Hall Award on 9 December, for services to the cause of film preservation. Noyce's film Newsfront featured extensive use of archival footage and a new print of the film is part of the NFSA's Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection. Read NFSA Director Paolo Cherchi Usai's speech at the presentation.


• 13 December saw many of Australia's film community gather at the Mint in Sydney to celebrate the completion of the Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection - a five-year partnership with Kodak (Australasia) and Atlab to produce pristine prints of 50 classic Australian features. A second project, the NFSA Atlab/Kodak Collection II, was announced at the event, to treat another 25 titles over the next five years.


• Animator Lucinda Clutterbuck (Walnut and Honeysuckle, The Web) and producer Vincent Sheehan (Little Fish, Mullet) have been announced as the latest recipients of the AFC's Filmmaker Fellowship program.

Top

• Bit of Black Business is a new short drama development initiative from the AFC's Indigenous Branch in partnership with SBSi. Emerging Indigenous filmmakers are invited to submit 5-minute story ideas exploring individual notions and experiences of contemporary Black 'Business', from the unique perspective of Indigenous Australians. Deadline 10 February 2006.


• The innovative AFC/SBS cross-media initiative Podlove is calling for proposals from writer/director teams to develop documentary projects exploring the effect of modern technology on our relationships. Podlove will integrate five x 5-minute experimental documentary films with an advanced interactive website. From the intimate to the platonic to the perfunctory, Podlove will explore the impact of digital communications on our relationships with friends, family, lovers and strangers. Deadline 10 March.


• AFC funding deadlines - December/January:
  
  FILM DEVELOPMENT
  6 Jan 2006:
  Strand A1 - Draft Drama Funding (no feature credits) - FEATURES
  Strand A2 - Draft Drama Funding (no feature credits) - SHORT FEATURES or SHORT TV SERIES
  Strand J - Documentary Early Development
  Strand K - Documentary Development
  13 Jan:
  General Development Investment (GDI)
  Strand L - Shooting Time-Critical Material
  Strand N - Documentary Production
  20 Jan:
  Strand B - Seed Feature Funding
  27 Jan:
  Strand G - Long Shorts Production
  Strand I: IndiVision Low-budget Feature Production
  3 Feb:
  Strand D - Feature Draft Funding
  
  TRAVEL GRANTS
  The deadline for Type B and Type C Travel Grant applications for Producers wishing to travel to the European Film Market (EFM) has been extended until Monday 19 December.
  
  
• AFC funding approvals.

Top

• Responding to an emergency alarm system, a team of 17 people saved more than 65,000 photographs and scripts from damage at the NFSA in the aftermath of a major hail storm in Canberra on 26 November.


• One of Australia's most recognised and challenging filmmakers, Rolf de Heer, delivered the National Film and Sound Archive's 2005 Longford Lyell Lecture in Melbourne on 27 November. The full text is available on the National Film and Archive's website.


• The executive of the International Federation of Film Archives' (FIAF) met at the NFSA in Canberra 8-10 December. To celebrate the meeting, the NFSA presented a free program of fascinating documentaries, The Archive Plays Itself, examining the role of film and television archives in our popular culture and everyday lives.


• The National Film and Sound Archive has welcomed to the collection an extremely famous street sign! In a special ceremony in Melbourne recently, the Lord Mayor of the city, John So, donated a copy of the sign for ACDC Lane.


• Other recent special donations to the Archive include items carried by the girls in Picnic at Hanging Rock as they ascended the rock.


• More classic films from around the world are being acquired under the NFSA's policy of providing an international context for the national collection. A number of world classics have been acquired in their original format, including The African Queen (1951), Fantasia (1940), The Ten Commandments (1956) and La Reine Margot (1994).


• Other recent acquisitions include an extensive collection built up over 40 years by Bruce Johnson, one of the founding fathers of the Australian Jazz Archive. There are photos, jazz journals, oral histories, live studio recordings from Sydney radio 2MBS (famous for its jazz) and a glorious set of biographical files covering numerous musicians and bands.


• For the past seven years the NFSA has been producing a specialised radio program to celebrate the golden years of Australian radio called Theatre of the Mind. You can now listen to a selection of episodes on the NFSA website.


• Deborah Conway, a good friend of the NFSA, recently dropped in to publicise her latest show. Called Broad, it features five of Australia's best female singers: Sara Storer, Katie Noonan, Ruby Hunter, Clare Bowditch and Deborah. Her original band, Do Re Mi, is well represented in the national collection.


• Award-winning filmmaker and historian Graham Shirley has been appointed to the newly established position of Senior Curator, Documents and Artefacts. NFSA Director Paolo Cherchi Usai welcomed the appointment, noting that the position was an important building block in the new curatorial framework of the Archive.

Top

• Launching in its first territory, Greg McLean's horror film Wolf Creek scored a number one opening in Australia on its first day, with an estimated $142,639 (AU$193,045). Not bad going for a film that's rated R. The film has earned more than $5m in Australia so far, and is set to launch in North America through the Weinstein brothers' Dimension Films label on 25 December.


• The Australian films Little Fish, Look Both Ways, Josh Jarman, The Magician, The Proposition and Wolf Creek are screening in December-January so keep an eye out for them at your local cinema.


• The AFC's National Cinematheque wraps up for 2005 with sensational seasons in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, presenting work from Hollywood's screen queen Barbara Stanwyck to New Wave Sci Fi and Surreal Cinema.
  
  Barbara Stanwyck illuminates Melbourne screens in Baby Face, Forbidden, The Bitter Tea of General Yen and Sorry Wrong Number. Adelaide: ACMI Cinemas, 7-21 December.
  
  New Wave Sci Fi from the 60s and 70s saw European and Hollywood cinema respond to the radical times and to new movements in sci fi literature, with films more interested in ideas than special effects and inner 'monsters' than those from another planet. Films screening include Truffaut's Farenheit 451, Norman Jewison's Rollerball, Charlton Heston in Soylent Green and Michael Crichton's Westworld. Perth: Mercury Cinema, until 21 December.


• The Awards season ended in a flurry. A special congrats to Sarah Watt and Look Both Ways for outstanding achievement across the spectrum. See our summary of awards won by each film. For lists by award see AFI winners, IF winners, FCCA winners and AWGIE winners.


• Embassy Roadshow crosses the continents in December from Asia to Africa and then onto Europe. Ho Chi Minh City will host its second Roadshow event while the Spanish-subtitled film collection has a premiere season in Galicia, Spain. The High Commission in Pretoria is touring Roadshow films to Cape Town in South Africa and Gabarone in Botswana. The Roadshow is a travelling film festival that showcases contemporary Australian films to international audiences, facilitated through Australian embassies and posts abroad. It is an initiative of the Australia International Cultural Council through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and is coordinated by DFAT and the AFC.


• December/January submission deadlines are coming up for the following international festivals: Tampere International Short Film Festival; Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film; Hong Kong International Film Festival; Visions du Réel - International Documentary Film Festival Nyon; Singapore International Film Festival; Oberhausen International Short Film Festival; and Annecy International Animated Film Festival. See Festival Profiles for more information.

Top

• The AFC has made submissions to the following Government Reviews and Inquiries. See AFC Viewpoint for full details.
  
  • House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs' Inquiry into Technological Protection Measures (TPM) Exceptions
  
  
  • Department of Communications and the Arts Review of Divisions 10B and 10BA
  
  
  • Department of Communications and the Arts Review of the Duration of the Analogue/Digital Television Simulcast Period
  
  
  • Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Public Consultations Preceding the Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting of the WTO Doha Round of Trade Negotiations
  
  
  • Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Feasibility Study into an Australia-Japan Free Trade Agreement.

Top

• The industry standard A-Z Budgets are intended as a guide to preparing budgets in the format that is usually required by funding bodies like the AFC and FFC. There are now separate budgets for feature films, short films, documentaries, interactive digital media and animation. The downloadable Excel spreadsheets are suitable for both PC and Macintosh users.


• Read about the success of AFC-supported projects. This month we feature Cool, Crossing the Line and Mind the Gap.


• Are you looking for details of a particular Australian film title - feature, short, TV drama or documentary? The Searchable Film Database includes Australian and co-produced features, TV drama and documentaries from 1990 and shorts from 1998. It is updated on the AFC website each month.


• Upcoming Production Report.


• Latest updates to Get the Picture Online.

Top

• Welcome to Archival Loans Officer Robin Death, Policy Officer Julia Hammett-Jamart, Reference Services Officer Louise McCann, and Senior Curator, Documents and Artefacts Branch Graham Shirley. Farewell to Claire Owen, and Editorial Coordinator Kirsten Krauth.


• Positions vacant.

Top

• Sony Tropfest has announced an exciting new feature film production arm, the Tropfest Feature Program (TFP). Beginning in 2006, the TFP will produce one feature film each year with a budget of no more than $1 million.


• Popcorn Taxi has weekly screenings and Q&A sessions in Sydney and Melbourne. After 350+ shows over six years in Sydney and Melbourne, the event is spreading its wings to Darwin, Adelaide and Brisbane. If you are in these cities you can join the email list for your state on the Popcorn Taxi website. Darwin will start in November and will operate from Deckchair Cinema with screenings and filmmaker chats. The guest filmmakers coming to Darwin will also run special one-off professional development seminars for local filmmakers. Adelaide plans to do shows from both the Mercury Cinema and Palace Nova, starting before the end of the year.


• Immersion: Northern Rivers Screenworks, in Byron Bay throughout December, will host three interrelated projects - clinics, masterclasses and a producers' incubator - aimed at the professional development of Northern Rivers and interstate practitioners.


• mo:life monthly is an informal gathering that offers the opportunity to discuss the latest advances and opportunities in mobile media technology and culture. Find out about the various players and networks and what they offer; explore the capabilities of the latest handsets; and see what others around the globe are doing with this new format. Contact d.opitz@metroscreen.org.au


• Metro Screen's Members Production Group (MPG) meets on the first Tuesday of every month at 6.30pm at Metro Screen. Meetings are open to all Metro Screen members and give you the opportunity to pitch new ideas, discuss your current projects, share skills and resources and collaborate with others to produce your own films, TV content and media projects.


• ScreenWest and PAC Screen Workshops have announced the initiative PAC Script Lab, monthly rehearsed readings of West Australian feature film scripts on the last Sunday of each month. The ultimate aim is a honing of West Australian scripts and an increase in the profile, quality and awareness of West Australian film projects.


• IF Magazine's What's On in Film guide to screen events is sponsored by the AFC. The January to June 2006 calendar will be available on the AFC website soon.


• Other AFC-supported activities and events.

Top