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Exclusive: Smile breakout Caitlin Stasey and The Bikeriders and Better Man actor Damon Herriman have been set to star in Killing Breed, a survival thriller from actor turned writer-director Matt Day.

Killing Breed pits a family, desperately fighting for survival at an isolated Outback lodge, against a raging bushfire, out of control and consuming everything in its path, and three savage dogs, trained to kill and now unleashed into the wild.

Architect is handling worldwide sales and has launched the film to buyers ahead of the American Film Market. Pic is due to shoot in Australia in May 2025 and was developed with the financial assistance of the South Australian Film Corporation.

Kristian Moliere produces for Triptych Pictures, alongside Grant Hardie, Ian Kirk, and Phil Hunt, as part of a genre slate collaboration between Monster Pictures Studios and Head Gear Films, with Charlie Kemball executive-producing for Head Gear.

Killing Breed’s...

Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton is directing an upcoming movie about Pemulwuy, a significant figure in Australian history. The film, titled “First Warrior,” will tell the epic story of Pemulwuy’s leadership battling British colonization in the late 1700s. Sam Worthington and Jason Clarke are attached to star, and producers are looking for an actor to portray Pemulwuy.

Pemulwuy was a leader of the Bidjigal Aboriginal group near modern-day Sydney. For over a decade, he organized resistance against settlers moving onto traditional Indigenous lands. His efforts are regarded as some of the earliest, strongest opposition to colonization in Australia. Yet this pivotal period receives little attention historically.

The film aims to shine a light on Pemulwuy’s remarkable story. Thornton says the script captures “an important story” and he’s honored to be involved. Thornton has won acclaim for movies including “Samson & Delilah” and “Sweet Country.” Aboriginal creatives hold central...

Leading Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton has signed on to direct First Warrior, an epic feature about Australian Aboriginal resistance fighter Pemulwuy. Aussie stars Sam Worthington (Avatar, Hacksaw Ridge) and Jason Clarke (Oppenheimer, Zero Dark Thirty) have boarded the project in lead parts, while a casting search is said to be underway for the lead role of Pemulwuy.

A Bidjigal man of the Sydney tribes, Pemulwuy led a 12-year resistance against British settlers moving into his people’s traditional lands as Australia was colonized in the late 1700s.

One of Australia’s most admired directors, Thornton broke through in 2009 when his directorial debut, Samson & Delilah won the Cannes Film Festival’s Camera d’Or prize. His 2017 film Sweet Country took home Venice’s Special Jury Prize and his most recent work, The New Boy, starring Cate Blanchett, premiered at Cannes last year.

First Warrior is supported by the Bidjigal, Dharawal and...

“Territory,” Netflix’s Down Under answer to “Yellowstone,” has unveiled a trailer ahead of its online premiere on Oct. 24. The series, previously known as “Desert King,” is headed by Anna Torv, star of “Mindhunter” and “The Newsreader,” and Michael Dorman.

The show is created by Timothy Lee and Ben Davies and has as its central premise an intense squabble for land.

An official synopsis reads: “When the world’s largest cattle station is left without a clear successor, generational clashes threaten to tear the mighty Lawson family apart. Sensing this once great dynasty is in decline, the outback’s most powerful factions – rival cattle barons, desert gangsters, Indigenous elders and billionaire miners – move in for the kill.”

The extensive supporting cast include: Robert Taylor, Sam Corlett, Sara Wiseman, Dan Wyllie, Clarence Ryan, Jay Ryan, Philippa Northeast, Joe Klocek, Kylah Day, Sam Delich, Hamilton Morris (“Sweet Country”), Tuuli Narkle, Tyler Spencer...

Upcoming wartime drama The Guns Of Muschu has assembled a cast of Australian talent ahead of a planned shoot in 2025.

Directed by Australia’s Matthew Holmes, the story is set in the jungles of Papua New Guinea during the Second World War and centres on a mission in which eight commandos went in but only one survived.

The cast is led by Ben Hall, known for his roles in TV miniseries Warnie and Devil’s Playground, alongside Matt Day (Sweet Country), Callan McAuliffe (The Walking Dead), Jordan Fraser-Trumble (The Legend Of Ben Hall), Gerald Lepkowski (The Death Of Stalin), Maximillian Johnson...

Epic war-time survival tale “The Guns of Muschu” has already assembled a weighty cast ahead of a production start in the first quarter of 2025.

The film is an adaptation of the non-fiction book “The Guns of Muschu,” written by Don Dennis, with an adapted screenplay by Tom Broadhurst and Jack Brislee (“Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan”). The narrative brings to life a pivotal chapter of Australian war history with gritty authenticity, recounting the high body count Operation Copper, a mission during WWII when Australian and New Zealand troops were sent into the jungles of Papua New Guinea.

The objective of the mission was to investigate the Japanese defenses on Muschu Island, capture a Japanese officer for interrogation and discover the location of two naval guns on the island that were protecting a harbor. Eight commandos were landed as part of the operation, but only one survived.

The story...

With enough passion and grit, powerful, personal stories made one-man-band style can stand up against the best work of top Hollywood talent with far greater budgets.

Warwick Thornton’s “The New Boy,” inspired by his own experiences of being packed off to a Christian boarding school in Australia as a youngster, was in development for 18 years, finally coming together when Cate Blanchett read the script and suggested taking it on through her company Dirty Films. After working with him to adapt the lead role into the character of a nun who fills in for a priest whose death has been kept secret, the project began to come together, with newcomer actor Aswan Reid as the titular boy who begins to work wonders.

It just won the top Camerimage Film Festival prize, the Golden Frog, beating out work by some of Hollywood’s most lauded directors and cinematographers.

Thornton’s background...

Best-selling Australian novel, Runt” is to be adapted as a feature movie that will begin shooting from next month. Studiocanal is handling international rights sales and local distribution in Australia and New Zealand.

The story is a heartfelt, contemporary Australian tale, set in the country town of Upson Downs, where eleven-year-old Annie Shearer and her best friend, an adopted stray dog called Runt, try to save their family farm by competing in the Agility Course Grand Championships at the prestigious Krumpets Dog Show in London.

The book was released in 2022 and won a clean sweep of the major Australian literary awards including the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s book of the year for young readers, book of the year for younger children at the Australian Book Industry Awards, and overall book of the year at the Australian Indie Book Awards.

The movie is adapted for the screen by...

Signature Entertainment has acquired U.K. and Ireland rights to writer-director Warwick Thornton’s Australian drama “The New Boy” from The Veterans.

The film follows a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun, disturbing the delicately balanced world.

Debutant Aswan Reid leads the film in the titular role, alongside Cate Blanchett, Deborah Mailman (“Sapphires”) and Wayne Blair (“Rams”).

“Inspired by Thornton’s own experience of growing up as an Aboriginal boy in a Christian boarding school, this is ambitious, tonally tricky filmmaking, bringing an unexpected dose of whimsy to social interests more austerely explored in Thornton’s excellent previous features “Samson and Delilah” and “Sweet Country,” Variety critic Guy Lodge said in his review of the film.

“The New Boy”

The film is produced by Kath Shelper (“Samson & Delilah”) for Scarlett Pictures, Blanchett and Andrew Upton (“Stateless...

First things first, the reason I pounced on the assignment of reviewing The New Boy without knowing much about it was the presence of Cate Blanchett. Her last role was the brilliant and terrifying Lydia Tár in Todd Field’s “Tár” last year. The legendary actress is known for doing a variety of roles but going from playing the megalomaniac music conductor to playing an Australian nun in the 1940s’ is a huge shift for Blanchett. It is not surprising that the actor excels here as well, delivering yet another brilliant performance. However, the real star of The New Boy is the boy himself, who is played by eleven-year-old Aboriginal actor Aswan Reid.

The New Boy opens with an incredible scene of a little Aboriginal boy overpowering a policeman and running away before getting caught by another policeman. The boy, who is mostly silent and only speaks the aboriginal language,...

Aswan Reid delivers Australian cinema’s most impressive child performance for some time, as the titular youngster taken to an outback orphanage

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Warwick Thornton’s latest film sure is a strange one. In sheer stylistic bravado The New Boy matches, and in some ways exceeds, the great auteur’s previous works, which include Samson and Delilah and Sweet Country. But driven by a desire for symbolic heft, The New Boy becomes a cryptic and borderline impenetrable noodle-scratcher stuffed full of heavy religious imagery. Reportedly inspired by Thornton’s own upbringing as an Aboriginal child attending a Christian boarding school, the film revolves around a young Aboriginal boy (Aswan Reid), known only by the titular description, who is seized by police in the 1940s and taken to an orphanage located in the back of beyond.

The boy’s supernatural powers – including the ability to...

Aussie filmmaker Warwick Thornton joked that Cate Blanchett “elbowed” her way into his crafty sixth feature, The New Boy, as he introduced the pic at Deadline’s Cannes Studio shortly before its festival premiere.

In the pic, which debuted this week at Cannes, Blanchett plays Sister Eileen, a mysterious nun who runs an orphanage for lost boys; however, the role was originally written as a priest, to be played by a male actor, until the two-time Oscar winner came along.

“The character of sister Eileen wasn’t in the script at that time, but Cate coming along actually made it beautiful,” Thornton said.

Blanchett told Deadline that she initially reached out to Thornton during the pandemic and the pair began a virtual workshop to discuss opportunities they could create to work together.

“Like a lot of people during the pandemic, I thought well look, who do I really want to be a dialogue with?...

For about half an hour or so, Warwick Thornton’s “The New Boy” could almost fool you into thinking that it’ll be a gentle, evocative and beautifully atmospheric movie about a small group of people who mean well. But then things change, and an understated film that might have quietly dealt with Australia’s original sin – the decades-long removal of indigenous children from their parents – turns complex, spiritual and surpassingly unsettling, a mixture of religion and magic that doesn’t really trust in either.

It’s still beautifully composed, but it cuts that beauty with some thorny ideas and puzzling turns; it starts out beguiling, but it may end up getting under your skin.

Best known for “Samson and Delilah,” which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009, Warwick has largely been working in television since then, with the notable exception of 2017’s “Sweet Country,...

The new boy doesn’t get a name, and he doesn’t give one. Arriving at an isolated orphanage in rural South Australia in the early 1940s, he’s taken in with brisk kindness by the two nuns who oversee the place, but privileges like names are for children a little further along in their understanding and acceptance of this establishment’s firm Christian principles: Until he’s ready for baptism, the shirtless, mostly wordless Aboriginal newcomer will be acknowledged but not identified. It’s a limbo state that evocatively represents the tension between Australia’s Indigenous population and even the most notionally inclusive of their colonizers; in Warwick Thornton’s thoughtful magical-realist fable “The New Boy,” spiritual differences aren’t treated with violence, but echo bloody territorial conflict just the same.

Inspired by Thornton’s own experience of growing up as an Aboriginal boy in a Christian boarding school,...

Back in 2017, Warwick Thornton landed in Venice with a western that offered some corrective to the white-savior narratives of countless others in the genre. Sweet Country, his third feature, chronicled the real-life story of an Aboriginal stockman arrested and tried for the death of a white ranch owner in 1920s Australia. Hardly the first to foreground racial tensions within a period setting, the film stood as a refreshing departure from others that only ostensibly acknowledged Indigenous peoples’ experience under colonialism, but wound up prioritizing the redemptive arcs of their white heroes. Six years later, along comes The New Boy, a film that shares the same ethos of its predecessor. Here, too, Thornton digs up a chapter of his country’s past to subvert and ultimately reappropriate the white man’s iconography: where Sweet Country took on the western, The New Boy tackles colonialism through the prism of the Church. But...

Cate Blanchett is donning a habit in her next role post-“TÁR.”

The Academy Award-winning actress leads Warwick Thornton’s latest film “The New Boy,” which is set to debut at 2023 Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section.

Per the official synopsis, set in 1940s Australia, “The New Boy” is the story of a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy (Aswan Reid) who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery, run by a renegade nun (Blanchett), where his presence disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

Mezi Atwood, Deborah Mailman, Wayne Blair, and Kenneth Radley also star.

Blanchett’s Dirty Films and Scarlett Pictures partnered to co-produce “The New Boy,” with Roadshow Films distributing for Australia and New Zealand, and CAA Media Finance and UTA handling sales for North America. The Veterans on board to manage the rest of international sales.

Here’s your first look at Cate Blanchett in The New Boy, the latest film from Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton.

The pic will debut in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, which will be Thornton’s second appearance at the fest, following 2009’s Samson & Delilah, for which he won the Caméra d’Or Award for first-time directors.

Set in 1940s Australia, The New Boy is the story of a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy (Reid) who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery, run by a renegade nun (Blanchett), where his presence disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films and Scarlett Pictures partnered to co-produce, with Roadshow Films distributing for Australia and New Zealand, CAA Media Finance and UTA handling sales for North America, and The Veterans on board to manage sales...

The gig economy, and the food delivery industry in particular, are set for scrutiny in “Appetite,” an Australian short-form series that will debut next month at Canneseries, the TV festival that runs alongside the Mip-TV rights market (April 14-19).

“Appetite” is a mystery-comedy in which three penniless food delivery riders are brought together after their housemate mysteriously vanishes on the same night as a rider has a fatal roadside accident. They set out to discover the truth behind the accident and expose multinational food behemoth, Appetite.

“Appetite” was created by Mohini Herse (“Hair”) who wrote, directed and produced the series under her Fell Swoop Pictures banner. She worked with fellow writers Neilesh Verma (“Letters Home”) and Grace Tan (“Lucky Peach”), director Neil Sharma (“Heartbreak High”), and producer Karen Radzyner (“Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo”).

The drama includes performances from rising stars Shirong Wu (“Neighbours”), Gabriel Alvarado (“The Winter’s Tale...

Sam Neill revealed in an interview with The Guardian that he is being treated for stage-three blood cancer. Neill, best known for playing Alan Grant in the “Jurassic Park” franchise, first “experienced swollen glands during publicity for ‘Jurassic World Dominion’ in March last year and was soon diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma,” the publication reports.

“I can’t pretend that the last year hasn’t had its dark moments,” Neill said in an interview touting his upcoming memoir, in which he writes frankly about his cancer diagnosis. “But those dark moments throw the light into sharp relief, you know, and have made me grateful for every day and immensely grateful for all my friends. Just pleased to be alive.”

Neill received chemotherapy, which originally failed. According to The Guardian: “He embarked on a new chemotherapy drug which he will continue to receive monthly for the rest of his life,...

Exclusive: Sony has added Michelle Hurd (Star Trek: Picard), Bryan Brown (Australia), Darren Barnet (Gran Turismo) and Hadley Robinson (Moxie) to the cast of their as-yet-untitled rom-com from director Will Gluck (Easy A). Sydney Sweeney and Glenn Powell will lead the ensemble, as previously announced, with Alexandra Shipp also featuring.

Details as to the plot of the R-rated comedy are under wraps. But it’s based on a script by Ilana Wolpert that Gluck is re-writing. Joe Roth, Jeff Kirschenbaum, and Gluck are producing, with Sweeney exec producing for Fifty-Fifty Films, alongside Natalie Sellers and Alyssa Altman for Rk Films, and Jacqueline Monetta for Olive Bridge.

Perhaps best known for starring opposite Patrick Stewart on Paramount+’s Star Trek: Picard, Hurd has also been seen on series including Blindspot, Lethal Weapon, Ash vs. Evil Dead, Daredevil, Jessica Jones and The Glades, to name a few. Notable film credits include Bad Hair,...

Sam Neill has joined the Peacock limited series based on the Liane Moriarty novel “Apples Never Fall,” Variety has learned.

Neill will now star in the series alongside previously announced cast member Annette Bening. The show was originally ordered to series at Peacock in February 2022.

Per the official logline, the series “centers on the Delaneys, who from the outside appear to be an enviably contented family. Former tennis coaches Joy (Bening) and Stan (Neill) are parents to four adult children. After decades of marriage, they have finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. But after Joy disappears, her children are forced to re-examine their parents’ marriage and their family history with fresh eyes.”

Neill’s past television credits include shows like “The Twelve,” “Peaky Blinders,” “The Tudors,” and “Reilly, Ace of Spies.” He is primarily known for his films roles,...

Sometimes it’s like they read your mind—or just notice upcoming releases as you do. Whatever the case, I’m thrilled that the release of Terence Davies’ Benediction played (I assume!) some part in a full retro on the Criterion Channel this June, sad as I know that package will make me and anybody else who comes within ten feet of it. It’s among a handful of career retrospectives: they’ve also set a 12-film Judy Garland series populated by Berkeley and Minnelli, ten from Ulrike Ottinger, and four by Billy Wilder. But maybe their most adventurous idea in some time is a huge microbudget collection ranging from Ulmer’s Detour to Joel Potrykus’ Buzzard, fellow success stories—Nolan, Linklater, Jarmusch, Jia Zhangke—spread about.

Criterion Editions continue with Bertrand Tavernier’s Round Midnight, Double Indemnity, and Seconds, while Chameleon Street, Karen Dalton: In My Own Time,...

Australian independent production house Photoplay has appointed Karen Radzyner as its head of development. The company is the only Australian firm to have a show selected for MipTV’s CanneSeries.

Radzyner joins Photoplay from Dragonet Films. She previously produced two award-winning TV mini-series – Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo” (with Southern Star in 2011) and Nine’s genre anthology “Two Twisted.” She also held roles at Scott Free Films in London, as part of a Screen Australia fellowship, Australian public broadcaster Sbs, federal funding body Screen Australia and regional arts agency Create Nsw.

She will work alongside head of scripted, Linda Micsko, to spearhead the company’s recently established longform arm Photoplay Film+TV.

Radzyner also brings with her a significant slate including: “Appetite”; a co-production with Synchronicity Films and development partner Cineflix Rights with support from Screen Australia; an ABCMe YA action-adventure with development co-funded by...

Cate Blanchett is set to star in and produce the feature ‘The New Boy’ from award-winning Indigenous Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton.

Set in 1940s Australia, the film tells the story of a 9-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery, run by a renegade nun (Blanchett), where his presence disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair will also star in the project.

Also in news – Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz & Shailene Woodley cast in Michael Mann’s ‘Ferrari’

Written and directed by Thornton, Blanchett, Andrew Upton and Georgie Pym will produce the project for Dirty Films alongside Scarlett Pictures principal Kath Shelper.

“What a joy to finally be collaborating with Warwick — a filmmaker whose warmth, wit and humanity we have admired for so very long,” Blanchett said on behalf of Dirty Films.

Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films and Scarlett Pictures have teamed up to co-produce “The New Boy,” from award-winning Indigenous Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton.

Blanchett will star in the film, set in 1940s Australia, alongside Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair. Written and directed by Thornton, “The New Boy” depicts the story of a 9-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery, run by a renegade nun (Blanchett), where his presence disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

Blanchett, Andrew Upton and Georgie Pym will produce the project for Dirty Films alongside Scarlett Pictures principal Kath Shelper.

“What a joy to finally be collaborating with Warwick — a filmmaker whose warmth, wit and humanity we have admired for so very long,” Blanchett said on behalf of Dirty Films. “We can’t wait to be on the ground...

Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films and Scarlett Pictures are partnering to co-produce The New Boy with Blanchett attached to star and Warwick Thornton writing and directing. Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair join Blanchett in the ensemble, which is set to begin filming in October in South Australia.

Roadshow Films will be distributing for Australia and New Zealand, CAA Media Finance and UTA will be handling sales for North America, and The Veterans is on board to manage sales for the remainder of the globe. Blanchett, Andrew Upton and Georgie Pym will be producing for Dirty Films, and Kath Shelper will produce for Scarlett Pictures.

“What a joy to finally be collaborating with Warwick — a filmmaker whose warmth, wit and humanity we have admired for so very long,” Blanchett said. “We can’t wait to be on the ground with him and the wonderful Kath Shelper to realise this startling story.

Cate Blanchett is set to star in and produce a film called “The New Boy” that will be set in 1940s Australia and follow the journey of a 9-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy.

Indigenous Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton (“Sweet Country”) will write and direct the drama, and filming is set to begin in October of this year in South Australia.

Blanchett will star in “The New Boy” as a renegade nun running a remote monastery who takes in the child after he arrives in the dead of the night. However, the new boy’s presence disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair also star in the film.

Blanchett is producing through her Dirty Films banner alongside Andrew Upton and Georgie Pym, and Kath Shelper will also produce for Scarlett Pictures. The film was developed by Scarlett Pictures,...

Australia shoot set for October.

Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films is lining up an October shoot in Australia on The New Boy in which the Oscar winner will play a renegade nun who shelters a young Aboriginal boy. The Veterans, currently engaging with EFM buyers on Naomi Watts drama The Friend, handles international rights and will launch sales later this year.

Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair will also star in the production, which will shoot in South Australia. Indigenous Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton, who directed Venice 2017 special jury prize winner and TIFF platform Prize winner Sweet Country, will direct from his own screenplay.

New York-based distributor A24 has acquired the worldwide rights to Warwick Thornton’s The Beach, with the docuseries to have its global premiere on the company’s virtual platform later this month.

Set in Jilirr on Western Australia’s Dampier Peninsula, the six-part series follows the Sweet Country and Samson and Delilah writer-director as he hunts and gathers food, prepares dishes, and talks to three chickens, while relating stories from his childhood and adult life.

After being shot by Thornton’s son Dylan River across May and June of 2019 with the support of Screen Australia and Nitv, The Beach premiered on Nitv, Sbs, and Sbs On Demand in May 2020.

A feast for the senses. This Thanksgiving, spend a week at The Beach, a continuous streaming event in the A24 Screening Room

Get tickets: https://t.co/958s0zbXys pic.twitter.com/91JIndih7G

— A24 (@A24) November 2, 2021

The project, which was produced by Michelle Parker,...

Newly-appointed Screen Australia head of First Nations Angela Bates is taking an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to the role, insisting her focus is on furthering the strides made by her predecessors.

Bates, who first joined the department in early 2019 as development and investment manager, had the opportunity to work closely with previous head Penny Smallacombe, who vacated the position in May after more than six years.

Speaking to If, she said she would draw on the five strategic pillars identified in The Next 25 Years, a strategy that Smallacombe developed in consultation with filmmakers and industry stakeholders during the department’s 25th anniversary year in 2018.

“I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here,” she said.

“There are five key pillars that underpin The Next 25 Years strategy – Indigenous storytelling, identifying stories and talent, developing talent, connecting talent, and advocating for indigenous representation and leadership.

“I...

John Huston’s classic “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) echoes through Roderick MacKay’s feature debut “The Furnace” which premiered at last year’s Venice section Orizzonti, before heading on a festival tour with the final stop at Karlovy Vary, where we caught it. Both films are the stories of gold and greed, but the key difference between them are their milieus and the differences between the American and the Australian use of western genre tropes.

In America, westerns were created to preserve the myth of the hardy pioneers that fought the savage Natives for the land and have pushed the frontiers of the so-called civilised world from one ocean to another. Only in the New Hollywood era, the revisionist westerns appeared aimed at debunking the myths and used as the metaphorical canvas to expose the American imperial politics of the 20th century. In Australia, however, the western setting...

Producers Ben Ferris and Ulysses Oliver will explore the capabilities of filming on a micro-budget in the next few months as they aim to finish production on five features before the end of the year.

The pair came together to form Breathless Films last year and have since outlined a purposely prolific schedule for 2021.

They are in the midst of working on Craig Boreham’s Lonesome, a story about closeted country lad Casey, who finds himself down and out in the big smoke when he meets Tib, a young gay man with whom he is able to connect, albeit with some challenges.

The film, which is being shot in Sydney, stars newcomers Josh Lavery in the role of Casey and Daniel Gabriel as Tib with Anni Finsterer (Sweet Country) and Ian Roberts (Superman Returns) in supporting roles.

It is the second feature film for Breathless, following Amin Palangi’s psychological drama Tennessine,...

AMC Studios has greenlit series Firebite, helmed by Warwick Thornton and Brendan Fletcher and described as a “high-octane” Indigenous spin on the vampire genre.

Firebite follows two Indigenous Australian hunters, Tyson and Shanika, on their quest to battle the last colony of vampires in the middle of the desert – a colony shipped from Britain to Australia in 1788 by the colonial superpower to eradicate the Indigenous population.

Sheltering from the sun in the underground mines and tunnels that surround the town until the present day, the colony’s numbers and hunger is growing. War is coming. Tyson and Shanika stand vanguard to the war.

A co-production with See-Saw Films, the eight-parter is expected to start shooting in South Australia in the coming months and land on AMC+ in the US later this year. There is no word as yet to an Australian broadcaster.

Thornton and Fletcher have co-created and written the series,...

Business affairs executive Sara McFarlane, whose credits include Lion, On The Rocks, and Top Of The Lake, has launched E/S Collab, a boutique executive-producing and business affairs consulting firm for producers and creatives.

Based in New York, E/S Collab has opened its doors with a roster of clients that includes Justin Geldzahler for his debut feature Glue Trap, as well as production companies Fork Films, Roller Coaster Road Productions, 1888 Productions, and Studio Unko, Acuity Productions and Jml Productions in Australia.

E/S Collab plans to work across film, TV, podcast, and other forms of media, handling all the business elements of the creative process, from development, through production, and beyond.

McFarlane started her career at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and See-Saw Films before moving to film financing firm Fulcrum Media Finance, where she worked on Lion, Top of the Lake: China Girl,...

Outgoing Screen Australia head of First Nations Penny Smallacombe is set to join Bunya Media Group as a producer.

Smallacombe will produce a number of the company’s upcoming projects, including Sbs drama series Copping It Black, working with directors Erica Glynn and Steven McGregor, who both penned the script with Danielle Maclean.

While at Screen Australia, Smallacombe helped shepherd to screen several Bunya Productions projects, including ABC series Mystery Road, Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country and Ivan Sen’s Goldstone, as well as helping to facilitate Bunya Talent Hub LA.

Smallacombe, a Maramanindji woman from the Northern Territory, tells If she has loved Bunya’s “big, bold” output over the past few years, and considers it a privilege to join the team. She is keen to use her new role to continue to bring authentic First Nations stories to screen, particularly from exciting new talent.

“They’re a trusted...

Federal funding body Screen Australia confirmed its backing for a trio of Australian film projects that will now move forward into production. Director Robert Connolly (“The Dry”) is behind two of them as producer.

The funding decisions ensure that a steady stream of local films move into production, alongside the large volume of international films and TV series that are currently in Australia, taking advantage of generous incentives and good coronavirus control conditions.

Set in 1970’s Western Australia, “Kid Snow” is a drama about a washed-up Irish boxer who is offered a rematch against a man he fought 10 years ago, on a night that changed his life forever. He is faced with a chance to redeem himself when he meets a single mother and is forced to contemplate a future beyond boxing.

The film is directed by Paul Goldman (“Suburban Mayhem”) and written by John Brumpton (“Life”), Phillip Gwynne (“Australian Rules...

Screen Australia has announced $5.6 million of production funding for three feature films and returning seasons of Stan’s Bump and 10’s The Secret She Keeps.

The films include two Arenamedia projects: an new animation from the Oscar-winning Adam Elliot and a second feature from writer/director Alena Lodkina (Strange Colours), titled Petrol. The other film is Paul Goldman’s Western Australian feature film Kid Snow, produced by Unicorn Films.

Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason said: “We have been blown away by the volume of applications for production funding and are heartened at the breadth of distinct Australian stories that continue to come through.

“Adam Elliot is set to delight audiences around the world with a remarkable new drama in his signature claymation style; and we’re thrilled to support writer/director Alena Lodkina whose 2017 feature Strange Colours premiered at the Venice Film Festival, as she expands on her unique voice with striking follow up Petrol.

Award-winning children’s series First Day and Luke Eve’s ReCancelled are among five projects to share in $1.3 million of online production funding from Screen Australia.

The ABC iview drama about transgender student Hannah Bradford will return for a four-part second series, along with fellow Rose d’Or Award nominee Cancelled, which was inspired by Eve’s experience during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Other projects also include Sunset Paradise, a new series from the creators of YouTube hit Meta Runner; as well as animated children’s series Ginger & the Vegesaurs and comedy series The Emu War.

Screen Australia senior online investment manager Lee Naimo said the projects showcased engaging storytelling across a mix of genres.

“We are always looking for projects that have solid pathways to audience and we are very impressed by the range shown in this slate, whether it’s via platforms such as ABC iview or targeting significant...

Directed by Antaine Furlong, starring Charlotte Best, and set in the elevator of a high-rise, the sci-fi thriller Rising Wolf has been acquired by Samuel Goldwyn Films:

Press Release: Los Angeles, CA – Samuel Goldwyn Films announced today that the company has acquired Worldwide Rights (excl. Australia and New Zealand) to Antaine Furlong’s feature ‘Rising Wolf’. The film stars Charlotte Best (A Name Without A Place), Jonny Pasvolsky (The Front Runner), Alex Menglet (TV’s Wentworth), Susan Prior (The Rover), Lily Stewart, Justin Cotta,Tahlia Sturzaker (I am Mother), and introducing Karelina Clarke.

A young woman wakes, trapped, kidnapped in an elevator of a super high­ rise building at the mercy of her tormentors. This stylistic thriller, set in Shanghai, explores a young woman's instinct to survive in a situation out of her control. Trapped, without any form of escape, and cocooned in the belly of the beast, Aria is forced to adapt her thinking,...

Samuel Goldwyn Films has added to its growing list of Australian acquisitions, negotiating a deal for the worldwide rights to Antaine Furlong’s Ascendant.

Under the agreement, there will be a planned theatrical release of the film as Rising Wolf in the US on July 16.

Ascendant will be released in Australia and New Zealand this Thursday via Maslow Entertainment.

Set in Shanghai, the story follows Aria Wolf (Charlotte Best), a young woman who wakes, trapped, kidnapped in an elevator of a super high­ rise building at the mercy of her tormentors. Cocooned in the belly of the beast, Aria is forced to adapt her thinking, her beliefs, and her endurance.

The cast includes Jonny Pasvolsky (The Front Runner), Alex Menglet (Wentworth), Susan Prior (The Rover), Lily Stewart, Justin Cotta,Tahlia Sturzaker (I am Mother), and Karelina Clarke.

Ascendant was written by Kieron Holland and Furlong, who produced alongside Kristy Vernon,...

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired the North American rights to Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson ahead of its world premiere at SXSW next week.

In a deal was brokered by Momento International, The Drover’s Wife marks yet another Australian acquisition for Samuel Goldwyn, who has in recent years picked up films such as Rams, High Ground, Judy & Punch, Top End Wedding, Measure for Measure. H is for Happiness, Dirt Music, Koko: A Red Dog Story and Sweet Country.

Produced by Bunya Productions and Oombarra Productions, The Drover’s Wife is written and directed by Purcell, based on her stage play of the same name.

A reimagining of Henry Lawson’s classic short story, the story is set in 1893 on an isolated property the Snowy Mountains, and follows the heavily pregnant Molly Johnson (Purcell) and her children, who struggle in isolation to survive after her husband leaves,...

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired North American rights to “The Drover’s Wife,” an Australian revenge tale written, directed and starring Leah Purcell. Sold by Memento International, the film is an adaptation of Purcell’s successful Australian stage play. The film is set to premiere March 18 at SXSW.

A searing Western thriller, the play “The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson” is a reimagining of Henry Lawson’s classic short story “The Drover’s Wife.” The story is set in 1893, and centers on the heavily pregnant Molly Johnson (Purcell) and her children, who struggle in isolation to survive the harsh Australian landscape after her husband leaves to go drove sheep in the high country.

One day, she finds a shackled Aboriginal fugitive named Yakada (Rob Collins) wounded on her property and forms an unlikely bond with him. Molly soon becomes the target of the suspicious lawman Nate Clintoff (Sam Reid...

After six and half years, Screen Australia head of Indigenous Penny Smallacombe will depart the agency in June.

Smallacombe joined Screen Australia in 2014, and during her tenure has helped shepherd to screen some of the Indigenous Department’s most high-profile projects, including ABC series Mystery Road and Total Control, feature films Sweet Country and Goldstone, and documentaries Maralinga Tjarutja, Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky and She Who Must Be Loved.

The highly-regard executive also stewarded the “The Next 25 Years” – the Indigenous department’s new strategy, the culmination of extensive consultation that occurred throughout the department’s 25th anniversary year (2018).

While at the federal agency, she has also overseen numerous initiatives, including Bunya Talent Hub LA, Songlines on Screen, Pitch Black Shorts, Shock Treatment, State of Alarm, [Black Space] and the Producers Initiative.

“Heading up Screen Australia’s Indigenous Department for the past six years has been one of the best jobs I...

Australians in Film (AiF) has partnered with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Screen Australia to launch Untapped, a breakthrough talent development program for undiscovered and underrepresented filmmakers.

The nine-month online program will include masterclasses and mentorship from internationally successful production companies.

It begins with open-access conversations with Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers (Search Party), Nisha Ganatra, Alma Har’el, Warwick Thornton and Taika Waititi.

Following the masterclasses, five creators or creative teams will then be selected for the Untapped Development Lab, a four-month intensive mentorship program.

Selected participants will receive individualised mentorship, story consultation, creative feedback and professional development support from top industry mentors including executives from Blossom Films, Made Up Stories, LuckyChap Entertainment, See-Saw Films and Truant Pictures. Each creative team will receive a $2000 stipend.

Overall the Untapped program aims to give emerging screenwriters and directors the education and access needed to fast track their careers and their projects.

Amanda Duthie will depart Sbs this week, where she has been acting as head of scripted since late 2019.

If understands Duthie will join Stan, though the streamer is yet to publicly confirm the role.

Duthie joins the Nine-owned platform as it ramps up its local commissions, having recently announced an ambitious plan to invest in more than 30 productions per year within five years.

On Stan’s upcoming slate is a second season of Roadshow Rough Diamond’s hit series Bump; Anthony Hayes’ feature film Gold, starring Zac Efron; Every Cloud Productions series Eden, and BBC co-production The Tourist, about to shoot in South Australia with stars Jamie Dornan, Danielle Macdonald, Shalom Brune-Franklin and Hugo Weaving.

While at Sbs, Duthie helped to steer its largest ever drama slate, including Goalpost Pictures’ New Gold Mountain and Aquarius Films’ The Unusual Suspects.

A spokesperson for the broadcaster told If: “Amanda has made...

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre echoes through the arid plains of this hardy, old-fashioned yarn. Like John Huston’s classic, The Furnace is a story of gold, greed and amorality with added grit that’s typical of the Australian ‘Meat Pie’ Western. Indeed, it comes during a brutal renaissance in the genre that started with The Proposition and has been followed by such films as Sweet Country, The Nightingale and True History of the Kelly Gang. With its mix of timeless themes and stark milieu, The Furnace joins this canon indepicting a continental history replete with prejudice, cruelty and psychopathic British lawmen.

Our focaliser is Hanif (Ahmed Malek), an Afghan cameleer imported by the Empire to move freight across Australia’s vast interior. Life in the wilderness is harsh, but Hanif finds good company in a group of Aborigines and a Sikh named Jundah (Kaushik Das). However, this is a land of heat,...

The barren earth surrounding a drought-stricken Aussie town provides fertile ground for mystery, suspense and punchy emotional drama in “The Dry.” This enthralling adaptation of Jane Harper’s international bestseller stars a spot-on Eric Bana as a city detective whose investigation of an apparent murder-suicide in his hometown triggers renewed suspicion about his involvement in a mysterious death that’s haunted the community for two decades. Expertly directed and co-written by respected filmmaker Robert Connolly, “The Dry” has all the character intrigue, clever plot twists and red herrings to keep viewers guessing. It should become a sizeable summer hit when released in local cinemas on Jan. 1. Broad international streaming exposure is assured.

Headlining his first Aussie feature since 2007’s “Romulus, My Father,” Bana is perfectly cast as Federal Agent Aaron Falk. A dedicated detective based in Melbourne, Aaron hasn’t set foot in hometown Kiewarra since departing abruptly following the...

In this year of disruptions, cancellations and virtual events, it’s hard to fathom that the prestigious 11-day Adelaide Film Festival, held biennially in October in South Australia, has proceeded as in pre-pandemic times: no masks, actual red carpets, in-person interviews on stage with filmmakers and talent, afterparties (where social distancing is more a suggestion than a mandate) and free-flowing drinks and shared party plates.

“Party like it’s 2020,” the festival’s newly minted CEO and creative director, the effervescent Mat Kesting, announced to the champagne-swigging opening night crowd of around 850 people gathered at the trendy east end of Adelaide. But at this festival, it’s like being in a frothy bubble of freedom amid the fear and lockdowns that most of the rest of the world is currently enduring.

While the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals held earlier in the year were forced to take their events online amid city-wide lockdowns,...

Sweet Country, screening on Thursday

Welcome to this week's Stay-At-Home Seven. It's getting to that time of year when channel directors expect more people to be staying indoors o they really start to compete when it comes to films, giving you some great titles to choose from. If you're looking for more inspiration, our recent Streaming Spotlight focuses on cinema's most remarkable young heroines, plus you can read last week's Stay-At-Home Seven here.

Skate Kitchen, Film4, Monday at 11pm

Camille (Rachelle Vinburg) lives in the suburbs on the nice side of town, but she's itching for something more. The girls in the inner city skate park live very different lives, with drugs and fighting and music and shoplifting, courting danger on and off their boards, living in the moment. Naturally Camille's mother doesn't want her to associate with them. When Camille gets involved with a boy from a rival gang - the ex of.

Ten new thrillers for you to watch and enjoy on our pages, from the comforts – and safety – of home!. Our October spotlight on goosebumps-inducing indies continues with ten new thrillers hailing from all corners of the world, a selection of breath-taking gems for you to enjoy on Cineuropa, from the comforts – and safety - of home! These titles are brought to you in partnership with eyelet (read the news), a streaming platform designed to give cinephiles around the world access to the very best in independent cinema. In conjunction with eyelet, we are now able to showcase films we’ve been reviewing over the years - titles you can stream and read about on Cineuropa. Stay tuned for the new movies coming your way soon! Sweet Country Warwick Thorton’s masterpiece adds an intriguing spin to the western genre. Impeccably shot and directed, it’s a brutal and gruesome tale.