Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund makes real twelve new Australian films which will premiere at the 2007 Adelaide Film Festival

The 2007 Adelaide Film Festival will world premiere twelve new Australian films from established and emerging Australian filmmakers including four features, three feature documentaries and five short films, all of which have received funding from the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund. The titles include new features by Kriv Stenders, Rolf De Heer, Tony Ayres and Paul Cox, plus first features by acclaimed ‘talents to watch’ Michael James Rowland, and Anna Bronowski, and short films by a dazzling array of Australian talent. Appearing in these films are amongst others, Paul Blackwell, Magda Szubanksi, Richard Green, Joan Chen, Kerry Walker, Gillian Jones, David Gulpilil, Tom E Lewis, and Chris Haywood. Plus a host of outrageously talented newcomers including Kenneth Moraleda, Arif Hidayat and Srisacd Sacdpraseuth (Lucky Miles), ten year old Joel Lok and sixteen year old Irene Chan (Home Song Stories) not to mention Errol the animated dog (Sweet and Sour) and Reg the real dog (Dr Plonk).

The stories both real and imagined these films tell are diverse in style and content, often funny often outrageously sad, but all in their essence Australian. They all fit into the AFF’s funding criteria, boasting strong production teams, and really great ideas.

The AFFIF provides equity investment in Australian screen production of $500,000 per year for two years [2006 -2007]. The Adelaide Film Festival Board, considering recommendation by the Festival’s Director Katrina Sedgwick, selects the projects. To date the AFFIF has invested over $1.813m in Australian films with a total projected economic impact in South Australia through these productions of over $3.897m.

Since its establishment in 2002 the AFFIF has created a highly impressive track record. Sarah Watts’ Look Both Ways opened the 2005 Adelaide Film Festival and went on to win awards across the world; Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoes has achieved stunning success around the globe. It has been nominated for seven AFI awards, has won the top prizes at the Cinéma des Antipodes in France and the Flanders Festival in Belgium and has also been nominated as Australia’s entry into the 2007 Academy Awards.

Adelaide Film Festival Chairman Cheryl Bart said, “The AFFIF is developing a reputation for supporting creative and ground-breaking Australian screen projects. They are unique and timely works that are connecting with audiences in Australia and have crossover appeal internationally. We are delighted with the calibre of this new slate of projects which demonstrate once again our position as a key player in financing structures available to independent and art house screen production in Australia.”

Commenting on his next feature film, director Kriv Stenders said, “When Katrina Sedgwick and I started talking about making ‘Boxing Day’ she said could offer me just $100,000 and I thought, was I crazy to make a film for that amount or was I crazy not to. It’s been a fantastic opportunity for me to continue developing a bolder and more adventurous style of filmmaking.”

AFFIF 2007 Slate

Boxing Day
Director/ Co-writer/ DOP: Kriv Stenders
Producer: Kristian Moliere
Co-writer/ Lead Actor: Richard Green
Investor: Adelaide Film Festival
Low budget, digital feature. Kriv Stenders (dir: Ilustrated Family Doctor) had success with another low budget feature at last years Sydney and Melb Film Festivals, Blacktown.

“Boxing Day is the story of a father's impassioned struggle to reunite his estranged family over the course of a single afternoon. Living alone on home detention, Chris Sykes is preparing a Christmas lunch for his teenage daughter, when an old friend turns up at his doorstep and exposes the disturbing truth about his ex-wife's new boyfriend. The film unfolds in real time, documenting in authentic, painstaking detail, the harrowing journey of a divided family on the verge of disintegration. As the situation slowly and inevitably escalates we are drawn into the compelling story of a father who finally exposes the dark and brutal secret that has torn his family apart.”

Lucky Miles
Director/ Co-writer: Michael James Rowland
Co-writer: Helen Barnes
Producers: Jo Dyer & Lesley Dyer
Executive Producer: Michael Bourchier
Starring: Rodney Afif, Srisacd Sacdpraseuth, Sawung Jabo, Arif HIdayat
Co-Investors: Film Finance Corporation, SA Film Corporation, Adelaide Film Festival, Private
Australian Distribution Company – Dendy Films
Debut feature from two South Australian talents- Director/ Co-writer: Michael James Rowland and Producer: Jo Dyer, now both based in NSW. The project will be made in SA.

"It’s 1990 and an Indonesian fishing boat abandons Iraqi and Cambodian refugees in a remote part of Western Australia. Whilst most are quickly caught by officials, three men with nothing in common but their misfortune and determination escape arrest and begin their epic but confused journey into the heart of the Australia. Pursued by an army reservist unit more interested in catching fish, our three heroes wander deeper into the desert, desperately searching for a Western-style democracy amongst the stones of the Pilbara. Or at least a bus to Perth."

Dr Plonk
Director/ Producer/ Writer: Rolf de Heer
Producer: Julie Ryan
Cast: Nigel Lunghi ("Mr Spin"), Paul Blackwell, Magda Szubanski
Co-Investors: Film Finance Corporation, Adelaide Film Festival, SA Film Corporation, Fandango Australia
Australian Distribution Company – Palace Films

DR PLONK is a black and white, silent comedy feature in the style of the old silent comedies (think Harold Lloyd, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Charlie Bowers), but with substantial contemporary relevance. Accompanied by a music score written specifically for the film (and able to be performed live if required), Dr Plonk will feature many of the elements of the old silent - slapstick, thrills and spills, romance, action and, above all, laughs... But the story will link the silent comedy world of the past, and the innocence it represents, into today's darker times, holding a mirror to aspects of our society with unexpected and humorous result.”

The Home Song Stories
Director/ Writer: Tony Ayres
Producers: Michael McMahon & Liz Watts
Executive Producers: Wouter Barendrecht, Michael J. Werner, Daniel Yun, Liz Koops
Starring: Joan Chen, Qi Yuwu, Joel Lok, Irene Chen, Steven Vidler and Kerry Walker
Investors: Film Finance Corporation, Film Victoria, MediaCorp Raintree Pictures, SBS Independent, Private
*Please note AFF investment is a marketing investment
Australian Distribution Company – Dendy Films
Tony Ayres (dir; Walking on Water)
The Home Song Stories is the story of Rose, a glamorous Shanghai nightclub singer, and her struggle to survive in Australia with her two young children. Based on a true story, this is an epic tale of mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, unrequited love, betrayal and hidden secrets that span continents and decades.

Forbidden Lie$
Director/ Producer/ Writer: Anna Broinowski
Producer: Sally Regan, Liberty Productions
Co-Investors: Film Finance Corporation, Adelaide Film Festival, SA Film Corporation, New South Wales Film and Television Office
Australian Distribution Company – Palace Films
100 min feature documentary.
In July 2004, Norma Khouri, best-selling author of Forbidden Love, was exposed as a fake. She’s won fame and fortune as a Jordanian virgin with a fatwah on her head for her campaign against honour killings. But she was really Norma Bagain, an alleged Chicago con artist on the run from the FBI for one million dollars of fraud.Spinning murder, greed and literary scandal into a web that entangles us all, FORBIDDEN LIE$ is a real-life thriller for our time.

Kalaupapa - Heaven
Director: Paul Cox
Producer: Mark Patterson
Co-Investors: Adelaide Film Festival, SA Film Corporation
90 min feature doc developed out of the relationships established between filmmakers and the community in 1998 during the filming of Paul Cox’s Molokai.

20 minutes by plane from modern Honolulu is Kalaupapa, a peninsula on the island of Molokai. With its swaying palms, unspoiled beaches and stunning mountains this is a paradise on earth, with a history from hell. Kalaupapa is a leper colony. In 1998 Paul Cox was permitted by the patients to make a biopic of their hero Father Damien. Now he has been invited to return to the island and make a documentary focusing on the last remaining leprosy patients of the island. Using interviews, home movies, photographs and music, this will be a film about survival and the celebration of life in the face of adversity.

Words from The City
Writer/Directors: Natasha Gadd & Rhys Graham
Producer : Philippa Campey
Featured artists include: Hilltop Hoods, TZU, MC Trey, Wire My Cuz, Downsyde.
Co-Investors – Australian Film Commission, Film Victoria, Adelaide Film Festival
Australian Distribution Company - Madman Rhys Graham recently had success at the Berlin FF with his short film, Love This Time. Philippa Campey recently produced The Archive Project feature documentary by John Hughes.

Words from the City is a feature documentary exploring Australian hip hop through intimate and candid observations of some of the nations most potent and compelling artists. Focusing on several diverse characters from around Australia, including the Hilltop Hoods, Downsyde, TZU, Trey and Wire My Cuz, Words From the City explores the social and cultural compulsion of young Australians as they embrace the verbal battle ground to express their personal, political and creative voices. Words from the City follows the daily lives of these artists across one long hot summer, as they cement their positions at the vanguard of Australian hip hop, a movement that's exploding onto the musical landscape as one of our most powerful and energetic creative forms.

Crocodile Dreaming
Writer/ Director: Darlene Johnson
Producer: Sue Milliken
Key cast: David Gulpilil, Tom E. Lewis
Co-Investors: Australian Film Commission, SBS Independent, NSW FTO, Adelaide Film Festival, National Geographic “All Roads” Film Project
25 min short film. Darlene Johnson is one of Australia’s most promising emerging Indigenous f/makers. She has directed the short Two Bob Mermaid, the TV doc Stolen Generations in 2000, and wrote and directed a documentary about the life of David Gulpilil, “One Red Blood”.

“CROCODILE DREAMING is the story of two estranged half-brothers, Burrimmilla and Charlie, who must struggle against their own jealousy and distrust for each other. When there is a violent death in the community upsetting the spiritual world, Burrimmilla is unexpectedly called upon to fulfill an ancient tribal obligation. As a result he embarks on a journey to find the sacred stone which holds the power of his mother's dreaming. If he finds the stone, he must return it to its secret belonging place. When the brothers finally come together, they are confronted by the spirit of their mother, who leads them to the special creation place, and the possibility of restoring peace and harmony in the natural world.”

Sweet & Sour
Director/ Writer: Eddie White
Producer: Sam White
Co-Investors – Shanghai Animation Film Studio, SA Film Corporation, Adelaide Film Festival & Idrawfast
SWEET & SOUR is a 15-minute 2D/3D animated short film co-production between the talented South Australian based The People’s Republic of Animation [PRA – who brought us the award-winning Fritz Gets Rich & Carnivore Reflux] the world renowned Shanghai Animation Film Studio [SAFS] and Reckless Moments. It is a warmly comic fable exploring issues of identity and culture through the eyes of Errol, a mongrel dog. This dynamic young South Australian team continues to build on their body of work with witty and irreverent short films, made with increasingly innovative partnerships. The Shanghai Animation Film Studio [SAFS] is a Chinese government-owned studio and is celebrating it’s 60th anniversary this year. Sweet and Sour is only the 2nd short film co-production SAFS has undertaken and the first with an Australian studio, the PRA. Sweet and Sour is a truly collaborative production between one of Australia’s youngest and China’s oldest animation studios.

Short Synopsis: Errol, a hungry, stray dog living on the city streets, stumbles across Chinatown while foraging for food. Intoxicated by its alluring smells, tastes and exotic culture, Errol believes that he has discovered paradise. But everything changes dramatically when Errol believes that he may be on the menu. He flees Chinatown and must find a way to fill the new void in his life.

SWING
Writer: Cath Moore
Director: Christopher Houghton
Producer: Louise Pascale
Cast: Chris Haywood, Giang Le Huy
Co-Investors – SA Film Corporation, Adelaide Film Festival
SWING is a 20 minute dramatic short film by a promising SA based creative time comprising writer Cath Moore [winner of AFF’s 2005 InSite competition], producer Louise Pascale and director Christopher Houghton. It explores the experience of an adolescent girl – born in Australia but of Vietnamese heritage –struggling to find her identity as she inhabits two different cultures. It has a truthfulness that comes from the writer’s own experience as an Australian with Irish & West Indian heritage. It’s an intriguing and intimate portrait of adolescent s in contemporary Australia.

Short Synopsis:
“Sarah is 17, Australian Vietnamese, and hates her life. After the recent death of her father she rebels against her family and takes a job cleaning for a blind Vietnam Vet. Her friendship with the old man forces her to face her own torment and realise her life and who she is, is something truly beautiful."