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Filmmaker supports union in visa review

Veteran producer-director Martha Ansara warns that deregulating the system of approving visas for foreign actors and crews would endanger Australian cultural content.

“The risk is that such a move would be a step towards the creation of a homogenized international product that offers us little in terms of our own culture and, being generic, must compete with the much better financed American product of the same type,” Ansara contends in her submission to the government’s review of Temporary Work (Entertainment) visa (Subclass 420).

“This would not be useful even to those who in the pursuit of the dollar seem not to believe that there is a distinct Australian culture worth maintaining.”

Ansara supports the retention of the requirement for the Arts Minister to approve certificates for foreign actors and crew. “The value of the certification is that it is license which guarantees for all to see that the appropriate procedures and checks have been carried out and fulfilled,” she says.

“The current visa arrangements have actually allowed the importation of significant numbers of foreign actors, both for ethnic reasons and to satisfy the views of investors and distributors, whether or not these views have been well-founded.

“Albeit there have been problems with 420 visa procedures, from time to time, on the whole the system as it is has worked well – allowing importations where necessary and protecting the development of successive cohorts of Australian actors, directors and crew.”

Similarly Ansara argues the requirement for the Minister to consult with the MEAA should continue, with the creation of clear guidelines to the consultation process.

“My experience … is that some producers can have dubious connections and dubious motives,” she says. “This is not something which it is diplomatic to say, and I know and admire some wonderful producers, but I suggest that if you doubt the dangers, you have only to look into some of the things that transpired during the 10BA period to see that producing can attract some rather untrustworthy characters.”

Ansara has worked a director, producer and consultant for more than 40 years, primarily in documentaries but also in drama, and is a recipient of the Australian Film Institute’s Byron Kennedy award and a life member of the Australian Directors Guild. Her book The Shadowcatchers: A History of Cinematography in Australia was published in 2012.

She warns that if the sponsorship and nomination requirements are abandoned, as advocated by SPA, Free TV Australia and Foxtel, “it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to determine whether the proposed employee is taking a job which could otherwise be filled by an Australian. The importance of the sponsor’s consultation with the relevant union in determining this is crucial to the purpose of the temporary visa.

"I cannot see any other body or individual knowledgeable enough about the industry to negotiate this matter with producers. Nor has any other person or body been proposed by this review.”
 

  1. Restrictions should be removed from the importation of foreign actors for government-subsidised screen productions. If casting is crucial to the financing of such productions, as it often is, I am confident that most Australian producers will endeavour to cast one of our many Australian A-List actors if they are available or suitable for a role; but otherwise they should be free to cast an appropriate actor from overseas.
    Applications for temporary working visas for such actors should be something that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection decides upon. That decision should not be contingent upon the opinion of just one of the organisations representing the many crafts affected. I can think of no other industry in our country where a trade union can prevent an overseas
    worker getting a temporary visa. So I think MEAA need to be taken out of any decision-making process. I am not convinced that my union’s management nor it’s elected National Performers’ Committee have enough knowledge about film financing to make objective judgements over such matters.

    As I’ve said before, we actors need to look past the narrow thinking of our union and its current leadership, and our own selfishness, and consider the added work opportunities that more production would give to crew, production staff, writers, editors, publicists, accountants, designers, composers, make up artists, directors etc…that myriad group of workers whose names appear in the credits at the end of a film.

    Relating to any argument that cultural objectives need to be preserved I quote Matt Deaner, from Screen Producers Australia …

    “These suggested reforms empower industry to expand levels of production with the public safe in the knowledge that there are a number of safeguards in other legislation and regulation – such as the Significant Australian Content test under the Producer Offset, the Australian Content Standard and Screen Australia’s investment processes – that protect the cultural importance of our screen content.”

    I support any initiative that will help to encourage more private investment in Australian screen production. This will lead to more productions, hence more work for everyone in the screen sector, not just actors.
    20 odd years ago, when the current Guidelines relating to imported actors were formulated, there was a need to protect local jobs and the standard path to Hollywood success was for an actor to be cast in a major role in a Govt subsidised film and be spotted by US casting scouts. Nowadays, with the international recognition Australian actors have, young actors (and not so young) go direct to Hollywood and audition for roles with a remarkably successful strike rate. There is now no need for protectionist policies that were useful over 20 years ago in helping to establish the careers and credibility of our local talent. We have moved on!

  2. Martha’s producing/directing work is in a completely different budget range than feature film productions which require international finance and distribution in order to close finance, and thus need internationally recognisable leads.

    One shouldn’t compare oranges with apples.

    Certainly there is a place for a regulatory body – to ensure that unnecesary crew or cast and being shovelled onto AU soil.

    However, but it should NEVER be a union, which has at its core a border-limited and biased view of world economics, and whose only objectives is to protect it’s own current members (vs Australians as a whole), or to essentially force non-member cast or crew to join their union (which is illegal).

    Visa approval by unions doesn’t happen in any other Australian industry – so why should it happen in the Australian Film Industry ?

    Ultimately we’d all rather be working than being told either:
    “sorry we’re taking this movie to Sth Africa/NZ/UK/CA”
    or
    “we’ll only fund this film if you shoot it Sth Africa/NZ/UK/CA”

  3. What a delight it was to read the views of Martha Ansara.
    She is better placed than many, and in a small handful of people, in my opinion, who truly know the heart and soul of the business.

    The problems, or potential problems, and those she finds
    [quote] “not something which it is diplomatic to say” [unquote] are always lurking in the shadows, and I mean all the shadows, including the producers’ camp, and the union camp.

    I am not a fan of rules and regulations, but there are areas where they are sorely needed, and this much maligned, and often attacked, struggling industry of ours, is one of them.
    We are in need of a tribunal of industry watch dogs, who asses the merits of potential imports individually.

    I believe that neither the government nor the union has the expertise to handle these considerations or decisions.

    There should be an independent industry body bound by a code of practice and criteria.

  4. I understand that business is business. This was the thinking behind selling cancer through cigarettes and home improvements using asbestos, not to mention nuclear weapons. is it possible we might consider that cultural imperialism takes more than it gives. And instead of imposing an attractive, seductive but highly flawed Pax Americarna culture on a country developing its identity, perhaps allowing us to explore our individual potential before becoming subsumed in fairy floss. This may offer a vision for the future when we are forced to divest ourselves of the bought facade and look back to see where we got off the tracks, prior to the long walk home

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