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feature film Development funding approval details

2011 features summary

SEPTEMBER 2011

SINGLE-PROJECT DEVELOPMENT: FEATURE DEVELOPMENT

ALI’S WEDDING
Genre Comedy
Producers Helen Panckhurst, Michael McMahon
Associate Producer Sheila Jayadev
Writers Osamah Sami, Andrew Knight
Script Editor Tony Ayres

ALMOST FRENCH
Genre Romantic Comedy
Producer Sonja Armstrong
Executive Producer Troy Lum
Co-producer Raphaël Benoliel
Writer/Director Kate Dennis
Script Editor Steve Kaplan

BDAZL
Genre Musical
Producers Craig Somers, Brian Mooney
Writer Shanti Gudgeon
Script Editor Steve Kaplan
Synopsis A talented loner seeks a better life through dancing and fame, but instead finds it in friendship with the girls she initially saw as rivals.

BREATH
Genre Drama
Producers Jamie Hilton, Simon Baker, Mark Johnson
Writer Peter Duncan
Synopsis When surfer boys Pikelet and Loonie fall under the spell of older enigmatic big-wave surfer Sando, they are pushed to their limits towards self destruction. Based on the best-selling novel by Tim Winton.

COONARDOO
Genre Romance
Producer Patricia Hunder
Executive Producer Bryce Menzies
Writer Patricia Hunder, Munya Andrews
Director Catriona McKenzie
Script Editor Alison Tilson
Synopsis Set on a remote cattle station in outback Australia in the 1920s, Coonardoo, an Aboriginal girl, and Hugh Watt, the son of the white station owner, are childhood friends and best mates struggling between love, lust, prejudice and repression. Based on the acclaimed novel by Katharine Susannah Prichard.

DOG TRAINING FOR BEGINNERS
Genre Drama
Writer/Director Pip Karmel

ELVIS IN BOLLYWOOD
Producer Robyn Kershaw
Writer Tom Lubin
Script Editor Louise Gough

THE GREY NOMADS
Genre Comedy
Producer Jodi Matterson
Writer Carolyn Wilson
Co-writer Jonathan Gavin
Director Darren Ashton

LIFE
Genre Biopic
Producers Emile Sherman, Iain Canning
Writer Luke Davies

MEMORIAL DAY
Genre Crime
Producer Angie Fielder
Writer/Director Kieran Darcy-Smith
Synopsis Two brothers – one out of his depth in a hard world he doesn’t understand, the other recently returned from a period of self-imposed exile – struggle to redress the fallout from a past family tragedy.

MY MISTRESS
Genre Romance
Producer Leanne Tonkes
Executive Producer Robyn Kershaw
Writer Gerard Lee
Director Stephen Lance
Synopsis Suffering from grief after the loss of his father, 16-year-old Charlie Boyd seeks out the help of a local S&M mistress in an attempt to reconnect with his life.

PRINCE LEONARD
Genre Comedy
Producer Tom Burstall
Writer David Swann
Script Editor Greg Woodland
Synopsis A little Aussie wheat farmer takes on the might of the government over an unjust wheat quota and wins his freedom by forming his own independent principality.

REMARKABLE CREATURES
Genre Drama
Producer Heather Ogilvie
Co-producer Mark Gooder
Writer Jan Sardi
Synopsis Together, one woman’s gift and another’s determination result in one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 19th century. A revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship, based on the acclaimed novel by Tracey Chevalier.

THE RIGHT HAND
Genre Crime
Producer Timothy White
Writer/Director Julius Avery
Script Editor John Collee
Synopsis A young man is sent to prison where he becomes the perfect apprentice to ‘public enemy number one’, beating him at his own game.

ROCKPOOL
Genre Drama
Producer Karen Radzyner
Executive Producers Marian Macgowan, Miranda Culley
Writers Pip Karmel, Sonia Whiteman
Director Sonia Whiteman
Synopsis The story of a rockstar who must look offstage to find his band.

SINGLE-PROJECT DEVELOPMENT: FEATURE MATCHED FUNDING

CHOIR OF HARD KNOCKS
Genre Drama
Producer Marian Macgowan
Executive Producer Jason Stephens
Writer Pip Karmel
Director Jonathan Teplitzky
Synopsis A disparate and desperate group of people transcend their hopelessness and band together to find their voice, rediscovering, under the baton of their choirmaster, a dignity and purpose that their ravaged lives have threatened to destroy.

SINGLE-PROJECT DEVELOPMENT: MATCHED INITIAL OPTION FUNDING

EMILY TEMPEST
Genre Crime
Producer John Molloy
Executive Producers Michael Gudinski, Mark Morrissey
Writers Richard Molloy, Mick Molloy
Synopsis  Emily Tempest. Small, black, snaky as a taipan’s tooth: the woman least likely to pursue a career in policing. Something has drawn Emily back to Central Australia. To Moonlight Downs, the community she left a lifetime ago. Not much has changed; the barefoot kids are bush mechanics now but Emily still doesn’t know if she belongs in the Aboriginal world or the white. And trouble still seems to follow her. Based on Adrian Hyland’s award-winning series.