Press release
After winning over critics and audiences in 2007 with acclaimed box office breakout hit The Jammed, the same team is back with a new film, ELIMINATED, which commenced shooting in Melbourne this week.
Written and directed by Dee McLachlan and produced by Andrea Buck from film production company The Picture Tank, ELIMINATED is a politically incorrect comedy about two of Australia’s major obsessions, terrorism and reality television.
In ELIMINATED, a panel of guerilla judges selects and tests an eager and diverse group of young contestants to see who will take out the crown of ‘master terrorist’. Subjected to various challenges, interrogations and torture, the aspiring terrorists adapt and change – and even learn to work together – as they face tormenting and surprising eliminations.
Dee McLachlan explains, “Like Masterchef, The Apprentice or Survivor, our film follows in the true tradition of reality style shows – but with a twist.”
ELIMINATED has secured an impressive young dramatic and comedy cast, including two of The Jammed’s acclaimed actors, Veronica Sywak and Masa Yamaguchi.
Joining them are Osamah Sami (Saved, Lucky Miles), Richard Cawthorne (Noise, Blue Heelers, Neighbours), Frieda Mckenna (The Wedge), Leah De Niese (Neighbours, Court of Lonely Royals), Sachin Joab (My Year Without Sex), Kendal Rae (The Shak) and Helpmann Award winning stage actor and musician Matt Hetherington.
ELIMINATED also reunites the filmmakers with John L. Simpson, who formed his distribution company Titan View in 2007 to release The Jammed in cinemas. The film was a runaway success and went onto make $400,000 at the Australian box office, and was also released in New Zealand.
Titan View will distribute ELIMINATED in Australia/NZ.
“I am very excited to be involved in the next project from The Picture Tank. I was privileged to be part of their amazing journey which saw The Jammed embraced by critics and audience alike. Dee is Australia’s most innovative film director and will surely deliver a funny, clever and entertaining film that packs a political punch,” he says.
The Jammed was a 2007 thriller about human trafficking and the sex slave trade in Melbourne. Nominated for seven AFI Awards, four FCAA Awards and named “the best Australian film of 2007” by several critics, the film was the hit of the IF Awards that year, winning for best feature film, best script and best music.