Selection success for Australian filmmakers
Australian projects and filmmakers will enjoy success on the world stage following recent selection announcements for a variety of events.
The Annecy International Animation Festival, one of the most highly regarded animation festivals in the world, will screen three Australian shorts, one music video and episodes from two children’s TV series in competition. The shorts are Nullarbor, Aww Jeez and Collision; the music video is The Audreys ‘Sometimes the Stars’; and the episodes from TV series are Gasp! episode Fish Stick and Horace in Slow Motion episode The Belly Dance.
Two Australian documentaries will screen in competition and two projects will be pitched at the forum at Hot Docs. Held in Toronto, Canada, Hot Docs is North America’s largest documentary festival. The documentaries in competition are Memoirs of a Plague and Something to Tell You. The projects selected for the forum are I Am a Girl and Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls.
Producers of four Australian television projects have been invited to present their projects at the prestigious INPUT conference, which this year will be held in Seoul, Korea. This unique event – held in a different country each year – encourages the development of public service television by screening and debating the most outstanding programs from around the world. The Australian programs are My Place episode 1968/SOFIA, Goa Hippy Tribe, Dirtgirlworld episode 52 and Immigration Nation: The Secret History of Us.
One Australian project was selected for the public pitch competition at Content 360 at MIPTV to compete for a €12,000 development prize as well as global recognition. The project is a smartphone app for ‘Sexy Inc’ by producers Kylee Ingram and Malinda Wink. Over four days in Cannes, the world’s leading device makers, network operators and media professionals will connect, interact and strike deals that define the future of connected entertainment during transversal knowledge exchanges, matchmaking sessions, a start-up competition, experiential labs, fully immersive demos and showcases featuring the most recent industry innovations.
Annecy International Animated Film Festival
Shorts
Nullarbor (animated short)
Writer: Patrick Sarell
Directors: Alister Lockhart, Patrick Sarell
Producers: Katrina Mathers, Merrin Jensen, Patrick Sarell, Daryl Munton
Synopsis: An animated road-movie set across the vast barren landscape of Australia’s Nullarbor Plain.
TV SERIES
Gasp! ep. Fish Stick (children’s animated series)
Writer: Rachel Spratt
Director: Steve Moltzen
Producer: Suzanne Ryan
Synopsis: An experimentation with mind-control techniques while babysitting leads to panic when Gasp thinks he’s accidentally turned Winston into a fish stick.
Horace in Slow Motion ep. The Belly Dance (children’s animated series)
Writers: Luke Jurevicius, Andrew Kunzel, Arthur Moody
Director: Luke Jurevicius
Producers: Luke Jurevicius, Andrew Kunzel, Arthur Moody
Synopsis: Horace belly dances to the scintillating Arabic beat in an attempt to woo the very thing he loves the most... a quadruple decker beef burger!
MUSIC VIDEOS
The Audreys ‘Sometimes the Stars’ (music video)
Writers: Luke Jurevicius, Ari Gibson, Jason Pamment
Directors: Ari Gibson, Jason Pamment
Producer: Luke Jurevicius
Synopsis: A lost girl’s journey through a surreal landscape and her yearning to make a connection in this distant yet strangely familiar world.
GRADUATION FILMS
Aww Jeez (short)
Writer/Director/Producer: Michael Greaney
Cast: Josh Thomas, Michael Greaney, Darcy Prendergast, Ryan Granger
Synopsis: God is going on a trip but he doesn’t trust Jesus to behave in his absence. So he calls upon the overly conservative Satan to babysit.
Collision (short)
Writer/Director/Producer: Sarah Eddowes
Synopsis: A man and horse struggle for their individual freedom and control.
Hot Docs 2011
Memoirs of a Plague
Production Company: Looking Glass Pictures
Writer/Director: Robert Nugent
Producer: Mitzi Goldman
Sales: National Geographic Television International
Synopsis: A personal journey into the myth of the locust and a portrait of a war that can never be won.
Something to Tell You
Writer: Pete Gleeson (with use of original email by Gary Barling)
Director: Pete Gleeson
Producer: Pete Gleeson
Synopsis: Gary has struck up a relationship with a woman he likes on an internet dating site. He likes her, she likes him. So what could get in the way? The time approaches when they must meet, but he is yet to tell her he has a severe physical disability. As he reveals the details of his condition to her, we witness the arduous process of simply getting to bed. As the reality of his physical situation becomes clear, so to does his challenge to remain a romantic contender.
I Am a Girl
Writer/Director/Producer: Rebecca Barry
Producer: Nial Fulton
Synopsis: There is a group of people in the world today who are more persecuted than anybody else but they are not religious or political activists. They are girls. The I Am a Girl documentary and online project will focus on 10 girls from around the world and explore the reality of what it means to grow up female.
Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls
Writer/Director: Juliet Lamont
Producer: Jessica Douglas-Henry
Synopsis: Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls follows the fortunes of the six young women who are giving their all to gain success on the international music scene, as members of Myanmar’s first all-girl band.
Input 2011
My Place ep. 1968/SOFIA (children’s TV series)
Writers: Alice Addison, Beth Armstrong, Blake Ayshford, Leah Purcell, Nicholas Parsons, Jacquelin Perske, Tim Pye, Greg Waters
Director: Jessica Hobbs
Producer: Penny Chapman
Synopsis: My Place is the story of one spot in Australia told by the children who live there over 260 years. Based on the children’s book My Place by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins.
Goa Hippy Tribe
Writer/Director: Darius Devas
Producer: Paul Rudd
Sales: SBS Content Sales
Synopsis: Goa Hippy Tribe explores two of the major social revolutions of the past 50 years – the hippy movement, which changed the way we lived, and Facebook, which has changed the way we communicate. These two unlikely companions are the genesis for Darius Devas’ story.
Immigration Nation: The Secret History of Us
Directors: Jacob Hickey, Ben Shackleford
Producers: Joe Connor, Ken Connor, Jacob Hickey, Lucy Maclaren, Sara Tiefenbrun, Alex West
Sales: SBS Content Sales
Synopsis: Immigration Nation is an ambitious three-part series telling the secret history of how modern multicultural Australia was forged against the odds. More than simply a social history of different migrant groups it is a dramatic political thriller based on interviews with eminent historians and the testimony of eyewitnesses – many of whom have never told their stories before – to the momentous events that built a nation. This is combined with rarely seen archive, specially shot sequences and cutting-edge computer graphics applied to the actual places the events unfolded – both at home and overseas.
Dirtgirlworld ep. 52 (children’s TV series)
Writers: Cate McQuillen, Kathy Sandford
Directors: Jean Camden, Hana Kukal
Producers: Cate McQuillen, Janice Walker
Cast: Maree Lowes, Michael Balk, Krew Boylan, Gibson Nolte, Jason Davis, Cate McQuillen Music: Hewey Eustace
Sales: mememe productions, DHX Media
Synopsis: dirtgirlworld is a celebration of life in the big world outside. It’s where the earth rocks and everyone digs the planet!
MIPTV Content 360
NFB – smartphone app for youth engagement (smartphone app)
Australian Documentaries, represented by producers Kylee Ingram and Malinda Wink, was one of 18 innovative companies that was specially selected by Content 360’s professional jury to compete in Cannes for the opportunity to win a €12,000 development prize as well as global recognition for her smartphone app for ‘Sexy Inc’.