Film Buzzard
This week's Australian film news
China syndrome
Perhaps the future of the Australian film business, like so many local industries, lies in China? Last year the Australian government signed a film co-production treaty that has resulted in Children of the Silk Road. The film about orphans is set during the Japanese occupation, and has been picked up for local release by Fox. It will also receive a limited release stateside via Sony Pictures. Meanwhile shooting on Bruce Beresford's Mao's Last Dancer, also shot in China to the north of and inside Beijing during the past two months, has shifted back to Sydney.
Oz animation wins again
Aussie animation keeps triumphing overseas. The Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film has selected 10 Aussie films for its program, including Sheldon Leiberman and Igor Coric's film Global Warming and Chainsaw, directed by Denis Tublcoff.
Icon snaffles Dendy
Mel Gibson has slurped up a Dendy flavoured milkshake with the Icon Films take over of the highly respected arthouse film distributor and boutique exhibition chain, Dendy Films. It marks the end of an era for the indie outfit which was started by Lyn McCarthy and Graeme Tubbenhauer in the late 1980s, and has survived several reincarnations since.
The big merger
The merger of Film Australia, the FFC and the AFC (into the one-stop-shop called Screen Australia) will still go ahead in July, industry sources say. Rules and regs for funding won't change until the end of the year.