Director Rachel Ward’s The Seduction and a debut film from Anthony Maras titled The Water Diviner are among the most advanced of the films in development at Hopscotch Features.
The Seduction, set in Paris, is about a French woman coming to terms with her life at the same time as the son she left in Australia years earlier arrives unannounced. It is adapted from The Tin Man by Ward and the novel’s author Sarah Walker.
Andrew Knight and Andrew Anastasios have written the script of The Water Diviner about a man who returns to Gallipoli to seek reconciliation three years after the famous World War I battle. Anthony Maras directed the celebrated short film The Palace, which premiered at Telluride.
Australian directors Gregor Jordan, Stephan Elliott, Clayton Jacobson, Robert Luketic and Ray Lawrence are attached to some of the other dozen or so features in development and two or three are expected to go into production annually.
The aim behind Hopscotch Features is to make films in Australia with Australian talent and international scope. The first two films are now in post-production: the gothic epic I, Frankenstein, the second film by Tomorrow When The War Began director Stuart Beattie; and The Grandmothers, an Australian/French co-production directed by Anne Fontaine and starring Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, Xavier Samuel and James Frecheville.
Producer Andrew Mason,Troy Lum and Frank Cox from distribution company Hopscotch Films/eOne, and writer John Collee are equal partners in the company. Rachel Okine oversees development and the day to day work.