AFF Investment Fund: June Update
The 2009 AFFIF slate is shaping up to be another bumper crop as you will see from the news below. It’s early days for most of these films as they have only juts started their festival circuit lives, and one the short drama Spike Up by Anthony Maras has only days ago finished a refined edit and sound mix.
Features:
Boxing Day (dir: Kriv Stenders, prod: Kristian Moliere) was one of the seven titles from the 2007 AFFIF slate to been invited into the 54th Sydney Film Festival. We expect to hear of further festival selections, as well as the already announced screenings at the Dungog Film Festival (NSW), Perth’s REVelation Film Festival and the fourth Australia- Israel Cultural Exchange (AICE) in Israel in late June.
Palace Films are releasing Rolf de Heer’s silent comedy Dr Plonk on August 30 in cinemas nationally for those who missed our warmly received Closing Night.
Producers Jo Dyer and Lesley Dyer and director Michael Rowland were over the moon to hear that Lucky Miles won the Audience Award for Best Feature at the Sydney Film Festival which bodes well for its reception at Karlovy Vary in July.
Documentaries:
Forbidden Lie$ (dir: Anna Boinskowski and prod: Sally Regan) recently played to sell-out crowds in the 500 seat Isabel Bader theatre at the HOTDOCS festival in Toronto, with several people coming back to see the film a second time. The film was placed in the top 5 most popular films out of the 129 films at Hotdocs in the audience awards.
Words from the City
(directors Natasha Gadd and Rhys Graham and producer Phillipa Campey) screened at the Sydney Film Festival where it was nominated for a FIPRESCI for Best Documntary and has been programmed into the REVelation Film Festival in Perth. Following these screenings it will appear on JTV on ABC, so keep an eye out for it.
What the Future Sounded Like
(director Matthew Bate and producer Clare Harris) was selected into the Sydney Film Festival and the Berkshire International Film Festival in USA.
Shorts:
Opening night film for the Message Sticks Film Festival in Sydney this year at the Sydney Opera House was Crocodile Dreaming (dir: Darlene Johnson and prod: Sue Milliken) with co star David Gulpilil in attendance. Recently it was selected into the National Geographic All Roads Film Festival (USA) and will be distributed on DVD by Ronin Films. The Federal Government has ordered 90 copies for distribution to all Australian embassies.
Great news for Swing , the short drama written by Cath Moore, directed by Chris Houghton and produced by Louise Pascale. It won the Best Short Film at St Kilda and scoped Australia’s largest cash prize for a short film, $10,000. It too was selected into the Sydney Film Festival.
The coveted Yoram Gross Animation Award announced at the Dendy Awards in Sydney was won by
Sweet and Sour
. Directed by Eddie White and produced by Sam White, Barry Plews, Hugh Nguyen and Ren Zhong Lun from the Shanghai Animation and Film Studio, the award has a prize of $3,000.
