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Exclusive: Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting) and Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy) are in talks to star in Emma-Kate Croghan’s dramedy The Household Guide to Dying, based on the book by Debra Adelaide.

The film marks Australian director Croghan’s return to features after a 25-year absence. The director first made waves in 1996 with debut Love And Other Catastrophes, which garnered five Australian Film Institute award nominations and was picked up by Fox Searchlight.

She followed that up in 1999 with Strange Planet, starring Naomi Watts, but has only returned since then to direct a segment of music documentary I’m Only Looking: The Best of Inxs back in 2004.

Ellen Wander of Film Bridge International is selling The Household Guide to Dying at this week’s American Film Market in Las Vegas. CAA Media Finance and WME Independent are co-repping domestic.

The plot reads: “Acerbic household influencer Delia Bennett decides to...

An outstanding performance from emerging actor Alice Foulcher takes this lean and plucky film about stymied ambition to another level

Could Gregory Erdstein and Alice Foulcher become Australia’s Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig? If the married couple and Victorian College of the Arts alumni continue collaborating and get a couple more notches on their belt as impressive as their feature film debut – directed by Erdstein, starring Foulcher and written by both – that will be not so much a question as a certainty.

The cheap-as-chips That’s Not Me was reportedly shot for a paltry $60,000 – one of those call-in-favours figures that would skyrocket if proper wages were factored in. A young and spunky cast and crew have installed in this smart and sassy dramedy a highly disciplined, tonally cohesive style that reminded me, in its pluckiness and penny-pinching verve, of director Emma-Kate Croghan’s similarly cut-price 1996 debut Love and Other Catastrophes.

Emma-Kate Croghan’s indie flick has the verbal ping pong of a Kevin Smith joint crossed with the good-natured repartee of a Nora Ephron movie

Film history is dotted with stories of immensely talented people who launched their careers with a bang then disappeared from the scene far too quickly. What a shame we haven’t seen more from writer/director Emma-Kate Croghan, who rose to acclaim in the 90s and has made only two feature films: 1999’s Strange Planet (with Claudia Karvan and Naomi Watts) and 1996’s Love and Other Catastrophes.

Related: Dogs in Space rewatched – Michael Hutchence in a couch-crashing classic

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Lightning Entertainment, the Santa Monica-based sales, production and distribution company, has acquired international rights to the hit South by Southwest Film Festival comedy, Gus, starring Michelle Monaghan (Source Code, Gone Baby Gone) Radha Mitchell (Olympus Has Fallen, Silent Hill) and Michael Weston (Fox’s “House,” HBO’s “Six Feet Under”), it was announced today by Robert Beaumont, President of Lightning.

The film, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival to rave reviews in March, marks the feature film debut of Jessie McCormack, who directed from her own script.

McCormack is also a producer alongside Kathryn Himoff, Kevin Fitzmaurice Comer and Erik Van Wyck. The film is executive produced by Richard N. Gladstein (Finding Neverland, The Cider House Rules, The Bourne Identity). The deal was negotiated by Lightning Entertainment’s Joseph Dickstein and ICM Partners on behalf of the filmmakers. ICM Partners represents Monaghan and Mitchell and is also...

Here are the results from the We Love Soaps TV "Indie Series of the Week" poll for the week of June 19-25, 2011. The Bay returned with "Far From The Bay" and captured the top spot for the week.

If you're a fan of any of these shows, we encourage you to check out some of the other series you may not have watched yet.

Indie soaps that aired one or more episodes last week were eligible.

Watch last week's indie soaps below:

- Anyone But Me Season 3 Episode 5 "2,500 Miles To You" (Season Finale)

As The Corn Grows Episode 68

Awkward Embraces Season 2 Finale Part 1 "The Facebook"

- The Bay Chapter 5 Part 1 "Far From The Bay"

- Beirut, I Love You Episode22 "Lovely Rita"

- California Heaven Episodes 9, 10 & 11

- Downsized Season 2 Episode 4 "The American Dream"

Fumbling Thru The Pieces Episode 11 "It's all in the Cards"

- Los Americans Episode 5 "Lead Us Not.

Which web series was your favorite last week? Support your favorite continuing drama or comedy and vote in the weekly We Love Soaps TV poll below. Check back on Tuesday morning for the results (voting ends Tuesday at 9 a.m. Et). Only the shows that aired one or more new episodes from June 19-25, 2011 are listed. Based on release schedules, the shows in the poll will change weekly.

If an indie soap aired this week and is not on the list, feel free to cast your vote as "Other" and add a note in the Comments section of this post.

Watch this week's indie soaps below:

- Anyone But Me Season 3 Episode 5 "2,500 Miles To You" (Season Finale)

As The Corn Grows Episode 68

Awkward Embraces Season 2 Finale Part 1 "The Facebook"

- The Bay Chapter 5 Part 1 "Far From The Bay"

- Beirut, I Love You Episode22 "Lovely Rita"

- California Heaven Episodes...

Romantic comedies make money. Lots of it. So why isn’t Australia making more? Miguel Gonzalez spoke with the creators of I Love You Too, a comedy that will help fill that gap in the film market.

I Love You Too is comedian Peter Helliar’s big screen debut, produced by Princess Pictures’ Laura Waters (We Can Be Heroes, Summer Heights High) and Yael Bergman (Love and Other Catastrophes).

Helliar had worked with Waters in the pilot episode for Rove in 1999 and kept in touch with the producer.

Knowing he had a number of ideas for features, in 2002 Waters asked Helliar to choose one and start working on it. Due to other commitments, it took a while before that idea became a treatment and, finally, a film script.

According to Waters, the message that drove Helliar to write the story and guided every draft was “tell people that you love them”, and from that premise,...