ASO is now back on board and it’s another big year for us. If Santa didn’t bring you all the gifts you wanted, you can always unwrap the ones we have for you in the coming months – many new titles and filmmaker interviews, collections and top fives from respected people within the Australian film industry.
Just as one page of the history books closes, another turns and we eagerly await the next crop of Australian films. The past year was one of the most productive on record and with any luck the industry will manage a repeat performance. It’s already off to a great start with Jane Campion’s Bright Star opening on boxing day after a stellar response at the Cannes Film Festival last year, notably from one of cinema’s most notorious auteurs. Quentin Tarantino sent Campion a handwritten love letter of his own expressing his respect for the film, later telling the LA Times ‘I think it’s her best movie’. Although it subsequently didn’t dazzle those notoriously finicky members of the Golden Globes, with any luck it’ll shine come Oscar time and Campion will mirror the success of her landmark production, The Piano (1993), for which she won Best Screenplay and was nominated for Best Director. At the time she was only the second woman ever to be nominated for the directing award. Later in the year we’ll be publishing some of her early shorts – A Girl’s Own Story (1984), Passionless Moments (1983), and Peel (1982), winner of the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at the ’86 Cannes Film Festival.
With much excitement comes Bran Nue Dae, Rachel Perkins’ first film since 2001’s One Night the Moon (one of our most popular titles). The production is the long-awaited feature film adaptation of the semi-autobiographical stage musical hit by Jimmy Chi. Released in cinemas January 14, the film stars Geoffrey Rush, Deborah Mailman, Magda Szubanski, Ernie Dingo, Jessica Mauboy and newcomer Rocky McKenzie in the lead role. The film will make its US premiere later in the month at the Sundance Film Festival. For those wishing to learn about the significance of the source material, you should check out Tom Zubrycki’s documentary from 1991, also titled Bran Nue Dae.
Another Sundance darling will be released in cinemas this May, Animal Kingdom, from writer-director David Michôd, whose shorts Crossbow (2007) and Netherland Dwarf (2008) have appeared at the festival and many others around the world over the last few years. His gripping tale of a young man stuck in a whirlwind of violence in the Melbourne underworld stars a murderers’ row of Australian male actors – Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Luke Ford, Anthony Hayes and Guy Pearce, appearing in his first Australian film since Gillian Armstrong’s Death Defying Acts (2007). Animal Kingdom was produced by Porchlight Films, previously responsible for Mullet (2001), Little Fish (2005) and The Home Song Stories (2007).
Stay tuned to the ASO blog for more news and views in the coming year and don’t forget to pop in and say ‘allo to us on Facebook, Twitter and in the Greenroom, our social space for film lovers to dissect, debate and deliberate all things Australian film.
