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ACS and ADG unite against ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ import

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The Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) has joined the Australian Director’s Guild (ADG) in its criticism over the hire of a Canadian director to shoot the upcoming Picnic at Hanging Rock mini-series.

Canadian Larysa Kondracki is set to shoot the first three episodes of the six-episode series, currently in pre-production, alongside Aussie Michael Rymer.

In a statement, ACS National President Ron Johanson said: “Quite frankly we are astounded that, given the wealth of directorial talent in Australia, someone from overseas has been given the honour to helm the majority of this new version of Joan Lindsay’s novel. So with that in mind I would like to publicly state that the ACS is fully supportive of the ADG’s condemnation.”

“It’s also worth noting that this is not a co-production and is being fully financed in Australia. As a professional body that supports Australian talent the ACS is incredibly disappointed to think that organisations held in such high regard like Screen Australia, Foxtel and Fremantle Media are prepared to support overseas directors before talented Australian directors. Let’s just hope this is a one off and not the shape of things to come,” he said.

Australian cinematographer Garry Phi.lips will be the DOP on the series.

Actor-director Rachel Ward has also spoken out against the decision, telling the Daily Review that it was a “very bitter pill to swallow”.

“It’s ultimately just sad that those of us who have committed so many years as Australian filmmakers are thought so little of by some production teams and broadcasters here that we must import someone to do the job for us,” she said.

IF has approached FremantleMedia for comment.

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18 Comments

  2. Why is it everytime there’s a production, someone or some group
    want to find something wrong with it, Doesn’t matter that the production is creating jobs for many Victorian Techs & Actors for months, That it may go to a broader audience if there are known people who are apart of it, it’s ok for Aussies to go off shore. Any wonder we can’t compete on an international scale, we need to open our eyes we are competing world wide, better films and scripts, less reality TV may help,

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  3. Best man or woman for the job I say, national or international. Why slam or have a cry about it. If you were offered a gig internationally you’d bloody take it.

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  6. Jackie it’s great that you are finally following this story but surprising that its been happening for the last six or seven years and nobody from the screen practitioners industry has cared or blinked an eye? Currently anyone in the various screen industries can be brought in on a 457 visa for jobs funded by the taxpayer and made by internationally owned companies – writers, directors, producers, editors… the MEAA and the Screen Australia, SPA and the ADG haven’t complained until now… is all about funding.

    Here are the current film and TV occupations where Canadian, English, American or even South African crew can be brought in to fill positions over our local crew:

    https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2016L00800

    and under the Labor Govt is how the loophole has been exploited:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-20/government-cutting-457-job-list-for-skilled-migrants/8040548

    A country with such a small population and such a small industry should be training and promoting our own industry people before we look abroad and why the hell are we funding foreign companies to make programs here – why aren’t we funding our own programs made by our own crews?

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  7. Let’s just hope this is a one off and not the shape of things to come,” says ACS National President Ron Johanson of Screen Australia’s backing of a foreign director for one half of the TV series, “Picnic at Hanging Rock”.

    Foxtel and Fremantle Media may well have had their own good reasons for wishing to have a Canadian director rather than an Australian one. Likewise with Screen Australia. What were the reasons? Does anyone know? It seems not. Has the ADG asked? If it has there is nothing in recent publicity to indicate this.

    What does seem clear is that the ADG lacks industrial clout. If it had any power as a union it would have stood up to Screen Australia before the decision was made to hire a Canadian director; not after the horse has bolted.

    Says Kingston Anderson, CEO of the ADG:

    “Australian directors are amazed and astonished at the choice of a foreign director to work on a classic, especially as it is not a co-production and is being fully financed in Australia.”

    Is this the best that the ADG can come up with in Dec 2016? To be “amazed and astonished”.

    I was one of its founders of the ADG (under a different name) more than 30 years ago. The ‘initiating incident’ for its formation in the 1980s was the regular importation of overseas directors to work on productions for which there were eminently qualified Australian directors to work’ productions financed primary with Australian tax dollars through 10BA.

    We directors decided that being “amazed and astonished” was not enough. Action was called for. Directors needed to unite to defend our right to tell Australian stories for Australian and international audiences – unless there was a compelling reason why an overseas director was better suited to a particular project. And so the ADG was formed.

    From a recent article in IF magazine:

    “Anderson said that this was an ongoing issue, particularly on TVCs, claiming that as many as 20 foreign directors were granted 420 Visas each year without meeting the requirements.”

    If this be the case, of what value is the Australian Director’s Guild in its representation of directors if all it can do is be “amazed and astonished”?

    Kingston Anderson again:

    “It saddens the ADG to see Screen Australia, Foxtel and Fremantle Media supporting Canadian television directors at the expense of Australians.”

    That’s it!? The ADG is ‘saddened’? The ADG is a union! How about some industrial action?

    From the recent IF Magazine article:

    “The ADG also announced that it will launch a campaign for better recognition for Australian directors, focused on “rights, respect and remuneration”. It argues that directors’ rights have slipped behind those of all other screen industry workers. “

    Really! More than 30 years after the problem of overseas director imports was identified, the Australian Director’s guild is now going to launch a campaign!? Directed at whom? And to what end?

    Another question:

    Why is Screen Australia, seemingly so concerned about the under-representation of Australian women directors in film and TV, backing a project in which a Canadian director gets to tell a quintessentially Australian story for a predominantly Australian audience? Why not provide Foxtel and Freemantle Media, if necessary, some inventive to hire a young talented female director?

    Do Graeme Mason and the powers-that-be within Screen Australia (including the SA board, which presumably approves of such imports) believe that there are no directors in Australia (male or female) qualified to work on “Picnic at Hanging Rock?”

    Has the ADG asked this question? Has Screen Australia answered it? Are we, in the film and TV community, entitled to know what justification Screen Australia provides for its decision to back a Canadian director at the expense of an Australian one?

    The bigger and more significant question that “Picnic” as a TV series raises is this:

    “Is there such a dearth of original ideas for films and TV programmes in Australia that we must, as an industry, as a culture, resort to re-makes?”

    If the Australian Director’s guild is not to become an irrelevant organisation, its board members, and Kingston Anderson as CEO, need to develop some spine and be prepared to go into battle with any and everyone (including Screen Australia) who acts in a way that is not in the best interests of film and TV directors. If they do not I suspect ADG membership number will decline and bring about its slow decline and eventual death.

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  8. Jessica, you’ve missed the point. We need to nurture, support and champion Australian directors because they, more than anyone else except the writer, give the film or tv programme its VOICE. If Screen Australia is supporting a production without an Australian voice, how is it meeting its charter vis-a-vis Australian screen culture?

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  9. There may be a case that the Canadian director’s attachment unlocked finance from Canada or Nth America.
    (or indeed the project may have at one time been estabished as an AU-CA coproducton, later re-set as an AU project)

    Film financing is not always about creative choice – it’s about actually getting the money to get a project made, and people being available at exactly the right time to unlock finance.

    7 years of producers (& writers) being development, packaging, traveling to markets and financing, and legals is a hell of a long time to NOT be paid, not to mention the cost of all that.

    If the unions are so concerned about who gets what role, then they are welcome to assist in the 7 year journey of not being paid to securing the financing, whilst incurring huge costs.

    That 7 year commitment will see a vast number of Australians in paid work, and if the series goes well, will mean more series in the pipeline.

    There is a bigger picture.

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  10. A finished film is the result of all its creative contributors.

    A good director listens to the whole team, and their creativity becomes part of the final vision.

    The Aussie producers and Michael Rhymer and the HODs will certainly be able to steer the Australian culture elements of the series.

    Having an acclaimed foreign director, with ties to Europe and Canada, will open international opportunities for Aussie actors and crew.

    It will also give emerging Aussie talent the opportunity to learn from someone with a wealth of experience on high end series.

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  11. @LfO – yes, being an independent producer in Australia is a very hard row to hoe. Not sure I’d classify Jo Porter as independent though … In any case, if your project is reliant on “soft money” – courtesy of the Australian tax payer – then it should be crystal clear from day one of the “7 year journey” that the soft money comes with strings attached eg a requirement that an Australian will direct! Otherwise, what return does the Australian tax payer see for his/her cheap money?

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  12. @Jessica – again, I must disagree. The whole point of having government funding bodies is to build up the cultural infrastructure of THIS country, not hire in from overseas. Nor is Screen Australia’s remit to provide local cast and crew with continuous employment – in service to an outsider’s vision. Sure film-making is a global enterprise, but are Australians to be seen as second-class citizens, incapable of leading?

    Rumour has it that Kondracki’s fee will be extremely generous. Most directors I know would use that money to (at least partially or indirectly) bankroll the development of their next project – ie write another draft or two (since nobody wants to properly fund development in this country, the fundamental problem of our “industry”) . Once this large wad of cash leaves our (very fragile) creative ecosystem, it will be gone forever. If it stayed within Australia, maybe it could contribute to the creation of, dare I say it, an original story which hasn’t been told before.

    The fact that there is a slew of remakes on the slate verifies the problem we have with properly funding development – and FIFO directors only make it worse!

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  13. If the tax dollars amounted to 100% of the budget, it would be fair that 100% of the packaging is subservient to cultural content rules.

    But for TV it’s only a 20% tax credit….
    with the other 80% coming from other sources…

    It’s extreme to expect 100% of packaging to be fulfilled locally for the 20% given.

    The 20% may have conditions, but you can be pretty sure the other 80% has conditions too.

    The alternative / risk is that the production goes to another territory, that may offer higher tax breaks and/or without the restrictions and red tape.

    Do you really want to see an AU story / production like PAHR shot in NZ or Sth Africa ? Etc

    Then every Australian crew and cast member loses.

    Yes Remakes are boring, i agree, but they pay the rent.

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  14. Jo Porter is the Executive Producer, not the producer.

    The return is all those Australian jobs.

    Antonia Barnard is the Producer, and well done to Antonia for getting another project greenlit and keeping Aussie crews in paid work, rather than taking the production offshore for the purposes of finance.

    Continuity of paid work,
    means Aussie crews do not have to go abroad to work (aka talent drain), and also means that AUSSIE FAMILIES GET TO STAY TOGETHER AND GROW UP TOGETHER.

    Working and living in Australia are both the seeds of Australian culture, past and present.

    One or two people are not going to change that.

    The tax offset will not be paid on ATL fees that exceed 25% of the BTL costs, so on the occasions where there are excessive ATL fees, they are not using tax dollars. It’s the very reason why the ATL cap was instated.

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  15. Don’t Australian directors have families and pay rent too? Not sure what your point is; was it ever mooted by anyone that this would be shot anywhere but in Australia? You talk about the bigger picture; to me the bigger picture is that FIFO directors can only be detrimental to our screen culture. BTW, do you reckon any of the Aussie crew will be working on Kondracki’s next production?

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  16. I find it interesting that ADG and ACS are so adamant about this – how many Australian directors are working in Film and TV offshore? And how many Australian DOPs shoot outside of Australia on foreign film and TV? And on TV commercials in both capacities? TV drama is funded by multiple parties, usually with an international pre-sale and/or international distribution funds – it’s one person amongst a crew of 70 or more Australians across the production. I am all for gender equality – but wonder if the Australian director was a woman and the import was a man whether there would be protests outside Fremantle and all these articles?

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  17. Come on everyone, our directors & DOP’s are going all over the world making Movie’s, TV Drama, And Commercials, Is this just because it so happens to be a female director? Perhaps it has something with trying to get the end product sold overseas with a name people may recognise,
    If you want the job apply like everyone else & step up, the days of getting a job because you think your entitled to it HA!!
    Of course are any of you thinking about the crew, actors, and all the flow on that comes from Freemantle making a 12 week drama in a state, Please get real

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  18. Here we go yet again. The carping and the deafening squeak of protectionism backed by the icy cringe of dilettantism. “Picnic at hanging rock is ours” squeak the wouldbes if only they could be, “This is our playground not theirs.”

    The US film industry was a desert until it allowed foreign directors to breath life into it, Australia was a sandy burning backwater, before ship loads of emigrants from Europe landed here and lifted the game.

    Film making and television production in Australia has gone from poor to marginally better and back to poor again because of its inability to step outside of itself and look at what is wrong, not slightly wrong, but crushingly obvious and desperately wrong.

    Perhaps, just perhaps mind you, a few international directors might question the bloody awful scripts and the lack of real support for the magnificent writers who exist here but never get a hand up, and worse still, never get an accolade for great artistic merit. The good actors who, like a great many good directors, disappeared to the UK, France and the USA to work, because they were choking to death here under the weight of a bunch of art baggers and pumped up camera operators who hold the fort at film and television world under the largely self constructed banner of Director and Producer, also to be found there under their equally shoddy banners are Actors, Comedians, Writers and even Artistic Gurus.

    Australia has everything needed to make great films, including climate, scenery, technical brilliance, some of the greatest crew professionals on the face of this planet, some fine actors, around three or four fine directors, sound recorders and special effects people, financial planning people, and many other vital people and industries. The one great big hole in the Australian film and Television drama business, is the absence, and I mean almost total absence, of a theatrical culture. This includes an absence of love for both the written and spoken word, combined with an almost total vacuum when it comes to the love and understanding of the vital component of sentimentality. The one great emotion that separates mankind from all animals.

    If it takes outside directors and producers and writers to fix this problem, then for the sake of one of the longest suffering industries under the southern skies, open the gates please and let in as many as we can house.

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