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2010 features summary

August-November 2010

ALI'S WEDDING
Producers Helen Panckhurst, Michael McMahon
Writers Osamah Sami, Andrew Knight
Synopsis To please his father and prove himself a good Muslim, Ali agrees to an arranged marriage, even though he’s already in love with the beautiful Dianne.

THE ANGST OF A LEMMING
Producer Scott McDonald
Writer Ruth Estelle
Director Richard Jasek
Synopsis Spanning two generations, The Angst of a Lemming is a romantic comedy which explores the way people search for love and the mess they get into trying to find it.

BRIDGES
Writer Katherine Thomson, Paul Thompson
Synopsis San Francisco 1934: The city is like a powder keg, just waiting for a spark to set the place on fire. That spark arrives in the shape of Harry Bridges, a fast-talking, hard drinking, self-educated gambling man from Australia with the dangerous belief that free speech and grass roots democracy can change the world. As the economy crashes around him this loquacious union man inspires the Californian longshoreman – black and white – to transform their lives from ‘Wharf Rats’ to ‘Lord of the Docks’.

THE BUNYIP OF BERKELEY’S CREEK
Producer Melanie Coombs
Writer/Director Sofya Gollan
Script Editor Stephen Cleary
Synopsis Animated adaptation of the classic Australian children’s book The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek. Bunyip emerges from a waterhole not knowing who he is or how he came to be. He begins a journey through the Australian countryside to find someone to tell him who he is, only to discover that the answer lies at home.

BURY ME TRACY
Writer/Producer Andrea Buck
Executive Producer James Michael Vernon
Writer/Director Dee McLachlan
Script Editor Lucy Scher
Synopsis When their friend and mentor dies and leaves a final request in the will, three heterosexual cross-dressing men must decide whether to come clean about their secret lives and fulfill his last wish.

CARTAGENA
Producers Naomi Wenck, Kristina Ceyton
Writer Nam Le
Synopsis A teenage assassin living in the slums of Columbia finds himself ordered to do a hit on his best friend. Choosing between loyalty to his friend, and the loyalty required of him by a merciless drug lord, Juan Pablo is a normal boy caught up in a ruthless world. Based on the best selling novel by Nam Le.

CHARLIE
Producer Brian Rosen
Writer Raen Fraser
Director Luke Eve
Synopsis A workaholic father who has lost sight of the most important things in life – his wife and daughter – is tragically killed, but is given a second chance to engage with his family when he comes back to life – as a bug!

THE CROOKED HEAD
Writer Cathryn Strickland
Synopsis An evangelical missionary and linguist moves his family to the Brazilian jungle hoping to convert a remote Amazonian tribe to Christianity but ends up rejecting his faith, picking a fight with his hero and losing his family.

CUT SNAKE
Producer Michael McMahon
Writer Blake Ayshford
Director Tony Ayres
Synopsis A tense, sexy thriller based on the notorious 1973 Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub fire that killed 15 people.

DARK PASSAGE
Executive Producer Gary Hamilton
Producers Ian Sutherland, Robert Luketic
Director Alan White
Synopsis An American couple set out to adopt a little girl after the loss of their own child, but waiting in the small Australian town, the couple have a run-in with an intimidating local, who kidnaps their new daughter as part of a deadly extortion plot.

DEATH IN CANTON
Producers Janelle Landers, Aidan O'Bryan
Writer/Director Ben C. Lucas
Synopsis A young man is forced to travel to China to deliver the body of a man whose accidental death he was responsible for, only to discover that the family have disowned their son and want nothing to do with his remains.

THE DETECTIVE
Producer Michael Robertson
Writer Roger Joyce
Director Peter Andrikidis
Synopsis Into the war zone that is Afghanistan, arrives lone wolf Australian Federal Police Detective, Larsson, on a errand of professional mercy to bring home the body of his friend and police colleague Paul Reeves. But when the detective looks at his dead friend's body and knows that no suicide has taken place, he descends into an unstoppable odyssey to find the truth.

DISCO BOY
Producer Bec Dakin
Synopsis No one can mix 'Celebration' into 'Come on Eileen' quite like DJ Paul Johnson. But while he has the musical jumper leads to get even the most laid back party started, he can't seem to fit his own life into any kind of groove until Emily, a free spirited 19 yo student and Felicity, a super-confident, sex kitten lawyer shake up Paul’s life forcing him to realise you can't spend your life dancing to someone else's tune.

THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
Producer Nils Erik Nielsen
Producer/Writer/Director Rolf de Heer
Synopsis Ever since grandfather died the night the floating stones fell from the heavens, the gods have seemingly deserted 14-year-old Eva and her family. Eva will be the next to die if a great journey is not undertaken, a journey beyond the edge of the world, a journey to the very heart of the gods.

ERNEE
Producer/Writer/Director Adam Elliot
Executive Producers Brian Rosen, Bryce Menzies
Script Editor Scott Meek
Synopsis Ernée Biskette’s tranquil life as a deaf Parisian taxidermist in the mid 1960s, is turned upside down when his wife, Nanette, accidentally drinks superglue and dies. Seeking a new life, he sells his store and with his pet duck, Celeste, heads to Venice in search of a superficial romance. He accidentally boards the wrong plane, however, and ends up in a strange foreign land called, Australia.

FIVE SPICE
Producer Bryan Brown
Writer/Director Gregor Jordan
Synopsis A love story between Lili, a beautiful outspoken chef from Shanghai and Luke, the son of a billionaire who is in China setting up a processed frozen Chinese meal business.

THE GREAT
Producer Marian Macgowan
Writer Tony McNamara
Director Gillian Armstrong
Synopsis For Catherine the Great of Russia the big decisions of her youth plague her as her reign lengthens. Determined to sustain the ideas of the Enlightenment in the ‘Deadwood’ world of 17th century Russia, Catherine champions the courageous choice over personal happiness despite the forces railed against her and her own demons. Tony McNamara will translate his award-winning play with all its comedy, faux history and dirty political tricks in a genre subverting story about our contemporary world, politics and lives.

GREEN HELL
Producer Cathy Overett
Executive Producer Mark Overett
Writer/Director David Caesar
Writer Peter Ivan
Synopsis 1937, Rabaul, the last frontier. Aussie bad boy McGuinness steals a cache of gold in the throes of a volcanic eruption and heads for the jungle with his protege, Jimmy, and the sassy Shirley, pursued by greedy Japanese spies, mud men and treacherous ex partners who are haunted by his nickname ‘Black Cat’, because very few who travel with him ever come back alive.

HIGHWAYS TO A WAR
Producers Naomi Wenck, Kristina Ceyton
Writer Christopher Koch
Synopsis When Mike Langford, a war photographer with a reputation for risk-taking, disappears inside Cambodia after its fall to the Khmer Rouge, he becomes a mythic figure in the minds of his friends. The search for him reveals the personal highways that led him to war, and to his ultimate fate.

HIROSHIMA
Writer Keith Thompson
Producer Raymond Quint
Synopsis In 1946, Australian soldiers and nurses enter the ruined city of Hiroshima to take their place in the occupation of Japan. Many of them carry revenge in their hearts for the war-time atrocities of the Japanese army. But in the ashes of Hiroshima, as a damaged human society goes about the task of re-inventing and renewing itself, young people from opposing sides are falling in love.

THE JUNGLE
Producer Amanda Higgs
Writer Alice Addison
Director Samantha Lang
Synopsis In 1988, an Australian family relocates to Papua New Guinea after the death of its youngest member. In this hot, humid climate, in the wake of their collective grief, family loyalties become as tangled as the jungle that encroaches on the barbed wire of their gated community.

LAST DANCE
Producer Antony Ginnane
Writer Terence Hammond
Director David Pulbrook
Synopsis Two Palestinian suicide bombers target a synagogue packed to capacity for Sabbath services. One blows himself up claiming many lives; the other escapes and holds hostage a female holocaust survivor. As the police close in, a strange relationship develops between the woman and the would be bomber. Past and present collide. She lost her family at Auschwitz and he lost his during an Israeli attack.

MADELEINE BLACK
Writer/Producer Anna Maria Monticelli
Director Steve Jacobs
Synopsis Two women of different generations battle their differences on love, loyalty and the nature of dating, in a comedy of errors.

MAIDEN VOYAGE
Writer Josephine Emery
Synopsis Michelle is a young solo yachtswoman whose boat is sinking in the Southern Ocean. Her only hope is a small freighter that is bearing down on her, but when she boards it she finds the crew is dead…and she is not alone.

MORNING GLORY
Producer Marian Macgowan
Writer Mira Robertson
Director Ana Kokkinos
Synopsis Sixty-nine year old Dolly, a country town ‘Saint Teresa’, has her goodness tested to the limit when she is mistakenly impregnated by Glory, a neophyte angel, and refuses to give it up even though it was meant for her best friend and neighbour, Rachel.

MONKEY
Producer Emile Sherman
Writer Justin Monjo
Synopsis Based on the ancient Chinese text, Monkey must travel across the entire known world with Tripitaka, a young priest, to bring Buddha’s Word back to man and save the world.

A MONTH OF SUNDAYS
Writer/Director Matthew Saville
Synopsis Flemington real estate agent, Frank Mollard, finds his life greatly improves after receiving an unexpected telephone call from his recently deceased mother.

MR PIP
Producer Timothy White, Robin Scholes
Producer/Writer/Director Andrew Adamson
Synopsis Set on the island of Bougainville, where civil war is raging, Mr Watts, the only white man on the island, offers to step in and reopen a school. His first act is to read ‘Great Expectations’ to the students. In young Matilda’s eyes, the character Pip is as real as any living person. But after she writes his name in the sand, the soldiers see it and vow to track this stranger down. Their search to find him will have devastating consequences for all.

THE MULE
Producer Paul Clarke
Executive Producer Bruce Kane
Writers Angus Sampson, Leigh Whannell
Director Tony Mahony
Synopsis Ray Jenkins, an unlikely drug mule from Sunshine, Victoria, takes on all the authority figures in his life by refusing to take a dump.

MUSIC OF MY LIFE
Executive Producer Timothy White
Writer Emma Vuletic
Producer Sally Madgwick
Script Editor Michael Hauge
Synopsis When Frankie meets Frank, she is an ambitious young journalist, he a ‘blocked’ music critic who has lost his ability to write, they are both looking for love in all the wrong songs, and try as they will not to fall for each other, they seem destined to be together.

MY MISTRESS
Producer Leanne Tonkes
Writer Gerard Lee
Director Stephen Lance
Script Editor Jane Campion
Synopsis Any idea of happily ever after ends when 16-year-old Charlie Boyd finds love in the arms of a 43-year-old S & M mistress and discovers a perverse and funny way of healing his grief following his father’s tragic death.

OCEAN WARRIOR
Producer Jamie Hilton
Writer Michael Bond
Synopsis A renegade activist swears revenge against an outlaw pirate whaling ship and sets in motion a series of hair-raising events that lead to world-wide banning of commercial whaling but, the fight continues.

PIANO LESSONS
Producer Marian Macgowan
Writer/Director Ana Kokkinos
Synopsis Based on the novel by Anna Goldsworthy. A young woman who wants to become a world famous concert pianist realizes that her pursuit of prizes in music is taking her further away from her own artistic path and so she must turn her back on the ultimate prize in order to reconnect with the piano teacher who truly inspired her.

PLATES DAY
Producer Jenny Day
Writer/Director Bruce Petty
Synopsis Plates Day is an animated satire on apocalyptic disaster movies

THE ROCKET
Producer Sylvia Wilczynski
Executive Producer Bridget Ikin
Writer/Director Kim Mordaunt
Script Editor Miro Bilbrough
Synopsis A boy who has lost his twin brother struggles to find his value in a homeland that believes him cursed. When a dam construction forces his family to leave their village, he leads his family and some ragged misfits through Laos to find a new home. After his calamity-filled journey, he tests his fate by building a giant rocket to enter the most dangerous competition of the year: the Rocket Festival.

ROUGHHOUSERS
Producer Monica O'Brien, Michael Glissing
Executive Producers Michael Boughen
Writer/Director Glenn Fraser
Synopsis Brought together by 14-year-old house-breaker Jasper Rigg, a rag-tag group of lost souls gather within a derelict cinema – the Mercury. Here this group of pre-teens plan crimes against a community they believe has betrayed them.

SOLSTICE
Producer Steve Kearney
Executive Producers Chris Adams, Warren Zide
Writer Mark Russell
Synopsis Rift is a laid-back prince destined to rule the permanent-day hemisphere of a planet that doesn’t spin. When he meets Mira, a headstrong girl from the dark side whose tribe declares war against the light side, Mira and Rift must overcome their differences and restart the orbit - before both their worlds are destroyed.

STORM
Prodcuer/Writer/Director Andrew Traucki
Producer James Michael Vernon
Synopsis The good and the bad prowl a futuristic western frontier world in their high powered flying rigs. Civilisation is encroaching on the fragile desert wilderness and its inhabitants. In true Western fashion one man is charged with bringing order to this world in chaos.

THE STRANGERS
Producer Miranda Culley
Executive Producer Marian Macgowan
Writers/Directors Daniel Dimarco, Heath Davis
Synopsis Heartbroken by the breakdown of his family, a dying patriarch and one time war hero devises an unconventional plan to reunite his estranged children. As a last will and testament he orders his offspring to endure a ‘bonding boot camp’ in order to receive their inheritance.

SUCKER
Producer Jason Byrne
Executive Producer Robyn Kershaw, Greg Sitch
Writer Lawrence Leung
Writer/Director Ben Chessell
Synopsis Con movie, road movie, romantic comedy, Sucker is a colourful collision of genre and style, infused with narrative drive and purpose by the beguiling biography of comedian Lawrence Leung.

THE UNDERHOOD
Producer Marc Gracie
Writer Chris Thompson
Synopsis When the Blood Flu took her husband and her daughter ran away from her failures as a mother, Rigby’s life disintegrated around her.

VENETIAN WEDDING
Producer Deborah Balderstone
Writer/Director Peter Duncan
Synopsis Adele can’t believe her luck when she finally meets the man of her dreams. The only problem is he’s gay. But that shouldn’t stand in the way of a good wedding, at least not as far as Adele’s mother is concerned… Based on the novel My Life and Other Misdemeanours by Prince Lorenzo Montesini.

THE WINTER CHILD
Executive Producer Tony Ayres
Producer Samantha Jennings
Writer Giula Sandler
Director Justin Kurzel
Synopsis A man who can’t forgive himself for the mistake that cut him off from his wife and children, becomes fixated with a grieving family’s search for their missing daughter as a way to redeem himself for his own earlier crime.

WHAT TIME IS MY HEART
Producer Tristram Miall
Writer Romi Trower
Synopsis New oddball neighbours, Grace and Adrian, find themselves in therapy with the same psychiatrist and share a walk home one evening, beginning a kind of impossible love story that takes ‘impossible’ to the next level…

YELLOW EARTH
Writer Max Mannix
Synopsis In August of 1944, as war raged in The Pacific, and with Australia on the verge of being invaded by the Japanese Empire, Sergeant Major Akira Kanazawa, and his colleague, air force pilot Sergeant Hajime Toyoshima, lead 1100 Japanese prisoners of war in a mass breakout from an Australian prisoner of war camp in Cowra.