Hot off the press release, but I’m not apologising for highlighting local film achievements: congratulations to all the winners, especially to Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton (who are a weekly staple in our house) for their Living Legend award.
RED DOG DOMINATES THE JAMESON IF AWARDS SYDNEY
· RED DOG takes home seven awards including the Event Cinemas IF Award for Best Box Office Achievement and the Showtime IF Award for Best Feature Film
· MARGARET POMERANZ and DAVID STRATTON are named the Jameson Living Legend IF Award recipients for 2011
· EMILY WATSON takes out the Dinosaur Design IF Award for Best Actress for ORANGES AND SUNSHINE
· JOSH LUCAS wins the IF Award for Best Actor for his role in RED DOG
· KRIV STENDERS wins the IF Award for Best Direction for RED DOG
· ANNA MCGAHAN, most recently seen in Underbelly: Razor wins the Out of the Box IF Award
· RACHEL PERKINS known for First Australians and Bran Nue Dae receives the Docklands Studio Melbourne IF Award for Contribution to Television
Full list of winners:
- SAE Institute IF Award for Best Music Video
Magic by Olivia Newton-John and WACCI
Director: Dan Murphy
Producer: WACCI- Hackett Films IF Award for Best Short Documentary
Umoja: No Men Allowed
Director: Elizabeth Tadic
Producer: Elizabeth Tadic & Selene Alcock- South Australian Film Corporation IF Award for Best Sound
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
Wayne Pashley, Polly McKimm, Derryn Pasquill, Fabian Sanjurjo- Holding Redlich IF Award for Best Short Film
When the Wind Changes
Director: Alethea Jones
Producers: Richard Davies & Veeran Naran- IF Award for Best Script
Red Dog
Daniel Taplitz- IF Award for Best Short Animation
The Missing Key
Director: Jonathan Nix
Producer: Anna McFarlane & Garth Nix- The Out of the Box IF Award
Anna McGahan
- AFTRS IF Award for Rising Talent
Anthony Maras- Dyson IF Award for Best Production Design
Oranges and Sunshine
Melinda Doring- IF Award for Best Film Festival
Dungog Film Festival- IF Award for Best Music
Red Dog
Cezary Skubiszewski- IF Award for Best Documentary
I Am Eleven
Director/Producer: Genevieve Bailey- Docklands Studios Melbourne IF Award for Contribution to Television
Rachel Perkins- Event Cinemas IF Award for Best Box Office Achievement
Red Dog- National Film & Sound Archive Independent Spirit IF Award
Mad Bastards
Director: Brendan Fletcher
Producers ; David Jowsey, Alan Pigram, Stephen Pigram & Brendan Fletcher- IF Award for Best Cinematography
Red Dog
Geoff Hall- Avid IF Award for Best Editing
Face to Face
Snowtown
Veronika Jenet- Dinosaur Designs IF Award for Best Actress
Emily Watson Oranges and Sunshine- Jameson Living Legend IF Award
Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton- IF Award for Best Actor
Josh Lucas
Red Dog- IF Award for Best Direction
Red Dog
Kriv Stenders- Showtime IF Award for Best Feature Film
Red Dog
Director: Kriv Stenders
Producer: Nelson Woss & Julie Ryan
How many of these Aussie films have folks here made the effort to see (and sometimes, given limited releases, it can indeed be an effort)? What did you especially enjoy recently in home-grown drama (you can include just telly stuff if you like)?
Thought “Red Dog” was a bit ordinary. Sorry to be a party-pooper. I know quite a few folk who loved it.
Might have been posted before, but here is Koko’s screen test from a couple of years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Su66nlzKC0
Enjoy.
I thought Snowtown was an amazing film in many ways, that’s probably the last Australian film that really had me thinking, since Van Diemans Land.
When RED DOG was released, David Stratton in the Australian was quite critical of the distributor Roadshow for not opening the film prior to or during school holidays. He felt it was a children’s or teenage film and should play such dates. He suggested that it had been bumped by Hollywood product. Sylvia Lawson in a piece in Inside Story also suggested the film was for a young audience.
For me, after seeing the film in opening weekend, I thought it played to an older audience, a more nostalgic audience, an audience that could actually remember the 70′s and lets say had bopped to ‘Daddy Cool’ as an original song, not reprised 70′s rock. Yes, Roadshow had made the correct call in the release. The point of all this really is researching the audiences who actually go to see a film.
While producers, distributors and investors will carry out test screenings and other research-marketing activities prior to release, box office is still used as the principal KPI once a film is on the screen. But box office doesn’t tell you who is actually seeing the fillum. In the case of ‘Red Dog’, it would have been really interesting to track the actual audience for the film during its trajectory to success. Was the audience mainly adult, did it cross over into teens or younger? While the cinema personnel on the ground might know, you wonder if such research is done by film bodies and agencies as an investment towards the future.
On another note, there is a whole discussion about the content of the film and whether it resonated in these ‘troubled times’ because of concerns about stranger danger from people on boats. Personally, I’d just go with the Daddy Cool theory.
Congratulations to all.
Charlie, distributors do that sort of demographic research. ‘Red Dog’ scored well as a family friendly film. Something we rarely produce.
Screen Oz has done a lot of research to find out where and how Australians watch Australian films. Overwhelmingly, it’s on pay-tv and DVD. It’s getting harder all the time to attract cinema audiences to films which aren’t primarily franchises and/or huge on CGI. We tend not to make those kind of films because of the cost.
In 1972, the highest grossing film at the Oz box office was ‘The Godfather’. In 2010, it was a one of the Harry Potter franchises. Notice the difference?
One of the changes which is occurring in the local industry is the Producer’s Offset which is designed to make big budget films more do-able. Baz Luhrmann’s latest ‘The Great Gatsby’ is being made under this financing model, with about $40m of its $120m budget coming from the offset. Of course, that opens all sorts of issues about Australian film and Australian culture, as does the current stoush between producers and the union concerning overseas actors working on Australian films. The lead in ‘Red Dog’ is and American actor. Does that matter?
FWIW, I think the best Australian film of the year was ‘Snowtown’. But, it was never going to be popular. I’m really pleased ‘Mad Bastards’ won an award. A lovely film; quite a tough one, but full of hope, love and great music.
On Charlie’s observations: in our local town (regional Victoria), “Red Dog” was screened recently as a special (free) Seniors Week show, to very large and appreciative audiences. With a free ice cream thrown in.
Nostalgia predominated.
The Red Dog story/film is a perversion of the truth.Having lived in Dampier in the early 80′s not that long after the dogs demise, I worked with many that knew the dog. No-one owned him, he was his own man so to speak. He used to jump on the ore trains to Mt Tom Price and Parabadoo go up and visit for a week or two. A much better story the the rubbish that has been told in the book or film.
Ron, I loved the movie Red Dog. But I did wonder at the lack of images of Indigenous Australians. In all his travels did the real Red Dog manage to avoid coming across them? Also it seems to fit in with current mining industry advertising. Was there mining industry funding for the movie? It suits the mining industry to have the general population believe that Indigenous Australians do not exist in the mining tenements.
Mining industry companies did invest in the film. Plainly, it’s great PR for them. It’s interesting that the director, Kriv Stenders, last two films had indigenous issues at the centre of them. That’s ‘Blacktown’ and ‘Boxing Day’.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-26/us-court-revives-rio-tinto-lawsui3601136
Funder of prosthetic limbs…and films! Thanks David S., for reassuring me of what is and what is not a propaganda film.
Apologies…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-26/us-court-revives-rio-tinto-lawsuit/3601136
‘…..Rio Tinto’s “worldwide modus operandi” was to treat indigenous non-Caucasians as “expendable”……’ So Red Dog is a propaganda film.
Nanalevu
Red Dog used to travel up north so he would have to have passed through Roeburne. However at that time blackfellas were not allowed into the mining communities including Karratha unless they worked for the local shire and were brought in to clean the streets, I doubt that the prejudice up there has declined much since then.
I bet that the film made no mention of the bulldozing of what was the world’s oldest, most extensive rock art gallery on the Burrup which happened about the same time as the dog was around.
Go and see Autoluminescent, which is very beautiful. Burning Man should be okay. Toomelah will be interesting. And The Tall Man which is coming out soon is said to be fabulous. Eye of the Storm is still on in some places and I liked it a lot.
I don’t normally do this, cos it is skiting, but here is my take on the awards -
IF Awards: The Dog film wins the lot . Routine but thorough.