2011 Screen Australia/Movie Extra competition winner

The 2011 Screen Australia/Movie Extra competition has a winner. From eighty entries, fifteen were shortlisted. Their films can be seen here.

The winner was Event Zero, by Enzo Tedeschi. The Screen Australia announcement is here. And the winning entry is available for viewing right here.

Life in Adelaide, 1966

Okay, I confess this one is self-indulgent. I hope it appeals to people overseas who are curious about life in Australia. As it was in 1966. 

The film was made by The Commonwealth Film Unit, known today as Screen Australia. It presents a picture of life in Adelaide in the mid 1960s, and was intended (I suspect) as a come-on to potential immigrants. So much has altered in the last 45 years that I won't even try to list the changes.

Screen Australia and Movie Extra offer $100,000 for new webseries

Screen Australia and a Foxtel channel, Movie Extra, have announced an offer to budding filmmakers of $100,000 to produce a webseries.

There's plenty of time. You have until 23 November, 2011, to write, fund, cast, direct, and post a 60 second trailer. 

“Webseries have fast become a great way for filmmakers to connect with a large audience and raise their profile”, said Mike Cowap, Investment Manager, Screen Australia. ”Through the initiative we hope to encourage exploration of the format, and the use of social media to build community around a piece of storytelling.”

The winner will receive a $100,000 production budget to produce a seven part webseries for Movie Extra. There will be an online voting process via social media, but the winner will be decided through a combination of votes and an official Movie Extra industry judging panel.

General voting for Movie Extra Webfest 2.0 closes 30 November, 2011 with finalists revealed 2 December, 2011. The winner will be announced on 7 December, 2011.
   

Screen Australia contact:
   Teri Calder
   (02) 8113 5833
   teri.calder@screenaustralia.gov.au

Last year’s winning webseries, Henry & Aaron’s 7 Steps to Superstardom, created by Henry Inglis and Aaron McCann, has achieved over 92,000 views on You Tube. You can watch Episode 1 here. 

                           Facebook    IMDb    Website    YouTube

Screen Australia scores big. Not.

if.com is carrying a story about famed UK writer Lynda La Plante (read her credits here, then compare them with the panel's credits) and her experiences when fronting Screen Australia's funding panel.

The writer of the Prime Suspect TV series told ABC Radio’s Tony Delroy that her script about Jean Lee – who was hanged in 1951 for murder – had received positive responses from actor Nicole Kidman and director Gillian Armstrong, who were both attached to the project.

The script was then brought to the Screen Australia’s feature film assessment team, which is led by Matthew Dabner and Victoria Treole.

“Then we come to the... new Screen Australia and I’m confronted by three people in a room," La Plante said in front of a live audience.

"And the guy at the end he goes ‘Well I can’t really see the point in doing this; you know she’s not a very nice person. And we all know she hanged’. And I go: what, what? It was just the embarrassment and the rudeness of the lack of respect [for] myself, for Nicole, for, particularly for Gillian Armstrong to say: if you have a problem with this script, we’ll iron it out.

“But for me I thought ok I can understand if ... writers in Australia say ‘why should she get a break in there’ it’s only 25 per cent of the budget – that’s immaterial.

Three Idiots

“I think any young writer that is forced to go before Screen Australia and be treated by these three idiots – [it] is an outrage – they showed no respect to a writer.”

Many of us have had bad experiences with funding bodies. Whatever the inside story, this is embarrassing for Australian filmmaking. (By the way, Three Idiots is an Indian film which is well worth watching.)