First-time feature directors Thomas Wright ('Acute Misfortune'), John Sheedy ('H is for Happiness'), Ben Lawrence ('Hearts and Bones') and Natalie Erika James ('Relic') will vie for the Australian Directors' Guild Award for Best Direction in a Feature Film ($1 million or over) against Sophie Hyde ('Animals') and Wayne Blair ('Top End Wedding').
It seems AACTA voters couldn't help falling in love with the craft behind Baz Luhrmann's 'Elvis', with the film picking up seven out of a possible 10 gongs at the Industry Awards - including a history-making cinematography win for Mandy Walker.
Amid turbulent times for the sector, Screen Australia has some positive news, announcing production funding for three feature films, four television series, a children’s series and two online projects.
Following on from its respective world and Australia premieres at the Cannes Film Festival and the Melbourne International Film Festival, writer-director Thomas M. Wright's 'The Stranger' will premiere on Netflix October 19 following a two week theatrical release.
Erik Jensen was an ambitious nineteen-year-old journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald when he was commissioned to write a profile of the painter Adam Cullen, the most prominent painter of his generation, who at forty-two was the youngest ever subject of a career retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. After reading the article, Cullen invited Jensen to write his biography. Jensen spent four years on and off with Cullen until his death at the age of 46. This is the story of their increasingly claustrophobic relationship. Cullen lied to Jensen, shot him and threw him from a motorbike. ACUTE MISFORTUNE reveals an iconic artist and an acclaimed journalist in unsparing detail. It is a film about acclaim and identity; theft and the commerce of theft, the instability of lies and the consequences of a flawed contract; and about coming through an abusive relationship to find meaning in its wake.
Guy Pearce will play a soon-to-be-paroled inmate who takes a young prisoner under his wing in the feature debut of writer/director Charles Williams.
This year's AACTA Award for Best Film will be a contest between Baz Luhrmann’s 'Elvis', George Miller’s 'Three Thousand Years of Longing', Leah Purcell’s 'The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson', Thomas M. Wright's 'The Stranger', Western Sydney anthology feature 'Here Out West', and Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes' horror 'Sissy'.
Thomas M. Wright, Harry Greenwood, New Zealand's Marton Csokas and Scottish actress Karen Gillan have been added to the cast of Adam Cooper's 'Sleeping Dogs' starring Russell Crowe.