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Films about films and the movie industry in general have been increasing in numbers during the last few years, as we have seen in the list we compiled back in 2020. Anime, however, has not picked up on the trend, with the exception of Masaaki Yuasa’s excellent “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!”. Takayuki Hirao comes to fill this gap with “Pompo the Cinephile” a truly great title that functions both as a realistic view to what happens behind the cameras and a love letter to cinema as a whole.

Pompo the Cinephile will be shown at selected cinemas in Japanese with English subtitles from Wednesday 29th June 2022, and with an English-language dub from Thursday 30th June 2022. The film is rated 12A.

For more information and to book tickets, please visit www.pompofilm.co.uk

The story is based on a web manga by Sugitani Shougo and follows Gene Fini, an...

Alright, who’s ready for a movie about making a movie? Pretty tired idea, eh? Sure we’ve seen recent flicks about the making of several classics, from Citizen Kane to Psycho, even The Room. Why there’s now a streaming miniseries about all the effort to get The Godfather made. Well, this flick’s got a couple of twists. First, it’s about a movie that’s not legit (kind of like the Rick Dalton movies of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood). Oh, and here’s the second, really big thing: it’s an animated feature. Specifically, an anime based on a manga originally serialized online. How’s that for “something completely different”. Plus the film title actually refers to this film’s producer, not the director or star, who is known as Pompo The Cinephile.

So, where is she known? Pompo (voiced by Konomi Kohara) is practically...

The title of “Pompo the Cinephile” — a bright and sparkly new anime feature adapted from Shogu Sugitani’s ongoing manga of the same name — is misleading on at least a couple of levels.

For one thing, the movie isn’t really about Joelle Davidovich “Pompo” Pomponett, an eternally prepubescent girl who happens to be the most powerful super-producer in all of Nyallywood. For another, Pompo is more of a mogul than a cinephile. The studio that she inherited from her grandfather has built its success by making explosive junk that adheres to a simple mantra: “As long as the lead actress looks attractive, it’s a good movie.” Also, anything that runs longer than 90 minutes is disrespectful to the audience’s time. As a different character puts it towards the end of this upbeat and pleasantly childish paean to the power of creative obsession: “There’s no profit in dreams.

Screen Australia has announced $17m investment across 14 projects including feature films and both adult and children’s television.

The investment is expected to trigger $97m in production.

The list of productions include: black comedy The Mule by co-writers/co-producers Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson with direction from Tony Mahony about a drug mule caught by authorities and Antony I Ginnane’s remake of Patrick, directed by Not Quite Hollywood’s Mark Hartley.

Also on the list is The Grandmothers, written by Christopher Hampton (A Dangerous Method) and director Anne Fontaine (Coco Avant Chanel) and starring Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, Xavier Samuel and James Frecheville in the adaptation of Doris Lessing’s novel.

For TV, the telemovie Underground by Matchbox Pictures, written and directed by Robert Connolly tells the story of a teenage Julian Assange hacking computer systems; and two TV productions by John Edwards Southern Star, a serialised version of...