Press release
On Sunday, tense psychological drama, BLAME, opened to a packed house with people lined up outside clambering to get a rush ticket. Blame received glowing reviews at its first screening outside of Australia at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Western Australian producers Ryan Hodgson and Melissa Kelly together with Victorian producer Michael Robinson and writer/ director Michael Henry were in attendance and received a rock star reception at the sold out screening and Q+A session.
Making his directorial debut, Michael Henry, described by the International Programmer for TIFF, Jane Shoettle, as showing “remarkable restraint and discipline in creating this tense, taut and devastating film”, is overwhelmed with the success of BLAME. “It's amazing to be screening my film at such a prestigious festival such as Toronto. Two of our three screenings have already sold out and the audience tonight was fantastic." Henry said.
BLAME has two more public screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival before screening at the 46th Chicago International Film Festival next month. If the North American reaction is anything to go by, Australian audiences will be in for a thrilling ride when BLAME screens first half of 2011 locally.
Shot entirely in Western Australia (in the Roleystone region of the Perth foothills) across four weeks in February this year, BLAME features a young, exciting ensemble cast. Sophie Lowe (Beautiful Kate, Blessed), Simon Stone (Balibo, Kokoda, Jindabyne), Kestie Morassi (Wolf Creek, Dirty Deeds, Satisfaction, Underbelly), Mark Leonard Winter (Balibo, Van Diemen’s Land), Ashley Zukerman (Ch10’s Rush), and 2009 AFI-winner Damian de Montemas (Underbelly, Secret Life of Us), all give jaw-dropping performances.
BLAME is a Factor 30 Films and 3monkeyfilms co-production, and has been financed by ScreenWest, MIFF Premiere Fund, Screen Australia and Private Investment. The film had its red carpet world premiere in front of an appreciative 500+ person capacity crowd at the Melbourne International Film Festival on 30 July and Peter Castaldi’s Pack Screen will release it in Australian cinemas in the first half of 2011.