MovieTime

A surfeit of Cate

Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton have had a third child, another son, and this week. Welcome Ignatius. The divine Miss B, who is in the running for some sort of ubiquity award, will go on nonetheless to chair the arts and creativity section at the 2020 summit this weekend. Julieanne Schultz, editor of the Griffith Review, will co-chair.

And following complaints this week in the Sydney Morning Herald about constant Cate news, we are hereby declaring the week in film a Blanchett-free zone till the next movie. Every new mother deserves a bit of a rest. And so do we.

Oz film tensions

Just when Australian filmmakers should be moving constantly into a new era with the advent of Screen Australia, and a new tax system, some major bickering has broken out.

The Australian Writers Guild has walked away from the industry lobby group the Screen Council of Australia, leaving it to founder after differences with the Australian Directors' Guild.

Meanwhile a paper written by director Robert Connelly, with proposals to rethink the way we make films here, is dividing readers. Some of the stuff is pretty technical, some uncontroversial (he suggests too much time and money go to lawyers getting Austration films off the ground) and some run counter to current thinking. Connelly thinks we should be making more films per year with lower average budgets.

And to fan the flames, there is also a microdoc clip circulating on YouTube of various industry people talking in pretty bleak tones about the state of Australian film. It's a trailer for a longer documentary.

Further Information

Embracing Innovation: a new methodology for feature film production in Australia by Robert Connolly

Trailer for Australian Film Industry doco, 'Nothing But the Struth'

Presenter

Julie Rigg

Producer

Julie Rigg

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