Australian Film In 2008
An Overview of Australian Film for 2008
Bernard Hemingway
In any other context the account books for the Australian film "industry" in 2008 would call for voluntary liquidation. With less than 1% of total ticket sales, the lowest figure since records of such things began to be kept some 30 years ago, to call a state of emergency would seem to be the required minimal response. However, following hard on the heels of similarly poor results in 2007 (despite equally good quality films), the reaction of the government funding bodies has been to repaint their offices and change some name plates, establishing a new central funding agency, Screen Australia, with an imported CEO, New Zealander, Dr Ruth Harley. The new regime promises a more selective investment schedule that favours track record. Whether this will impress local film-goers is a moot point for the lack of interest of Australian audiences in home grown product is not a reflection of any deficiency of quality, which pound for pound is as good as any country in the world, but rather broader socio-cultural realities. Be that as it may, if, like the overwhelming majority of Australians you haven't been flying the national cinematic flag, here's what you missed.
The head-on assault on our cultural cringe came of course from Baz Luhrmann and his budgetarily maxed-out would-be epic. Dividing audiences and critics alike between those who ran with its high spirits and those who dismissed it as a trumped-up Tourism Australia marketing campaign, Australia managed to recoup $30m in local ticket sales. Whilst this exceeded the combined theatrical sales of all other local films released this year, largely thanks to a huge amount of media publicity, it is still a far cry from its $150m production cost. Other international co-productions that finished in the handful of top-ranking Australian films in 2008 were Roger Spottiswoode's Children Of the Silk Road, Peter Duncan's Unfinished Sky and Gillian Armstrong's Death Defying Acts. Not in that group but receiving deserved critical appreciation was the shot-on-a-shoestring Son Of A Lion, directed by Benjamin Gilmour, an Australian-Pakistani co-productIon about the struggle of an 11 year old Pakistani boy to attend school in the face of his fundamentalist father's refusal.
With only a tenth as much box office as Australia, but a fraction of that film's production budget, the second highest grossing Australian film of the year with $2.25m in theatrical sales was The Black Balloon, directed by first time director Elissa Downs. Based on her own experiences living with an autistic brother, it won AFI awards for Best Film, Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay.
.Low budget family dramas were to the fore in 2008 with Bitter & Twisted, Ten Empty and Men's Group all being artistically impressive films. Despite being critically well-received they found only small audiences with Men's Group hanging on tenaciously at Melbourne's Nova Cinema. That with sales of some $65, 000 it out-grossed Jonathan Ogilvie's The Tender Hook a 1930s period romance with Hugo Weaving and Rose Byrne and a budget of $7m was quite an achievement. Although Lawrence Johnston's documentary Night had slightly better sales ($95,000) it also lost most of its $2m production budget, making it one of the Film Finance Corporation's more costly failures.
More straightforwardly commercial fare did not do greatly better. Hey, Hey It's Esther Blueburger returned $850,000 in ticket sales but The Square, Newcastle. Dying Breed, Monkey Puzzle and Cactus all failed to find audiences. One of the surprise commercial disappointments of the year was Mark Hartley's documentary on Australian genre film-making, Not Quite Hollywood. Preceded by a tsunami of hype, including opening the Melbourne International Film Festival, and released on 42 screens nationally, despite enthusiastic endorsement by the critics, the film-going public ignored it. No doubt it will make up for lost ground in DVD rentals and overseas sales. Another surprising disappointment in the year that The Castle was voted "Australia's Favourite Film" at the AFI Awards, was Ken and Simon Macrae's The View From Greenhaven, a likeable senior's comedy that came and went without a trace.
If Hartley's film under-performed, David Nerlich and Andrew Traucki's croc-shocker Black Water did surprising well ($100,000) considering that it was only theatrically released in New South Wales, indicating that it too will do well in the DVD and overseas markets. Lack of distribution was a fate which also befell Louise Alston's All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane, which received a limited release in its home town before going to DVD. Steven Kastrissios's The Horseman, which was selected for the Melbourne International Film Festival and won the Best Australian Film and Best Director Award at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival has not as yet managed a DVD release
One film to reverse the main trend was Matt Norman's documentary, Salute. Cannily released to coincide with the Beijing Olympics and reaping critical endorsement it took a surprising $200,000 in what can only be regarded as a specialty market. Other documentaries that received a commercial release included Rock N Roll Nerd, Glass: A Portrait In 12 Parts, Global Haywire, Celebrity: Dominick Dunne and Lionel.
Artistically, 2008 once again demonstrated the strength and diversity of Australian film. With economic hard times predicted for 2009, if there was ever a need to get behind Australian film this is it. Next time you go to the cinema, remember "Buy Australian".
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