FFC backs new creative team

The Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) will invest in the first feature from award-winning short film director Kriv Stenders and producer Catherine Kerr.

The Illustrated Family Doctor (based on the novel by David Snell) is a dark and irreverent comedy about illness, work, death and a young man who learns to survive it all. Director/writer Stenders describes it as a modern fable that looks at what holds us together when everything else is falling apart.

Stenders has had an illustrious career as a short film and documentary director - Horrible Man, Motherland, Motherland and Two/Out won awards in Australia and internationally - and has collaborated with Kerr for several years on commercials. Kerr recently worked on the Australian end of the UK-Australian co-production Charlotte Grey.

The FFC's chief executive, Catriona Hughes, said the investment in this first-time feature director illustrates the FFC's desire to support emerging creative teams as well as more experienced filmmakers.

"Our feature film slate includes filmmakers with very different levels of experience, from a director like Phillip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Clear And Present Danger) to first-timers like Kriv Stenders and Ivan Sen (Beneath Clouds). The emerging creative teams often have greater difficulty securing market co-finance, but they are the future of the industry and we absolutely support them."

The FFC will also be a minority investor in two other new feature films: Gettin' Square (written by Chris Nyst) is a hard-edged comedy directed by Jonathan Teplitzky (Better Than Sex), produced by Martin Fabinyi (Chopper, Cut), Tim White (The Kelly Gang, Two Hands) and Trish Lake (Beyond Red Planet); Under The Radar is a fast-paced comic thriller from the team behind the Schoolies Week story, Blurred (director, Evan Clarry, producers Chris Brown and Chris Fitchett), written by Steve Pratt.

In television drama, the FFC will be a minority investor in the telemovie The Postcard Bandit, to be produced Matt Carroll (executive producer Ross Plapp, director Tony Tilse), about notorious bank robber Brendan James Abbot.

Gettin' Square, Under The Radar and The Postcard Bandit have finance from the Macquarie Nine Film and Television Investment Fund.

The FFC will also invest in 11 new Australian documentaries. These include The Lucky Kings (producer Steve Jeffares, director Maciek Wszelaki), which documents the exotic life of poker professionals as it tracks them across the globe, starting out at the Las Vegas World Series 2002. Einstein's Wife (executive producer Paul Humfress, producer/writer Geraldine Hilton, director Nicola Woolmington) tackles the controversial subject of just how much Albert Einstein's first wife, physicist Mileva Maric, contributed to his theory of relativity.

On a lighter note, Radio Triple J's popular figure The Sandman (Steve Abbott), returns with his mother to their ancestral home in Sandman in Siberia. The filmmakers describe the show as "part documentary, part 'documentary, part travelogue, part Beverly Hillbillies' (director/executive producer Ted Robinson, producer Angel Dunn).

Details of all the FFC's new projects follow.

For more information, contact:

Fiona Nix
Nix Co
Ph: 02 9380 4933
nixco@bigpond.net.au

Feature Films

THE ILLUSTRATED FAMILY DOCTOR
Pod Film Pty Ltd
Producer: Catherine Kerr
Associate producer: Aline Jacques
Director/writer: Kriv Stenders
Co-writer: David Snell
Distribution/presales: Palace, SBS TV, Showtime, Moviehouse
Synopsis: The Illustrated Family Doctor is a dark and irreverent comedy about illness, work, death and a young man who learns to survive it all. It is a modern fable that looks at what holds us together when everything else is falling apart.

GETTIN' SQUARE
Mushroom Pictures
Producers: Martin Fabinyi, Trish Lake, Tim White
Director: Jonathan Teplitzky
Writer: Chris Nyst
Distribution/presales: Hoyts, Nine Network, Working Title/Universal/UIP
Synopsis: Gettin' Square is a hard-edged comedy drama about 'the little bloke doing his best'. It follows a group of small-time crooks who are trying to go straight, but find themselves pitted against the high-tech methods of the newly formed Crimes Investigation Commission.

UNDER THE RADAR
Pictures in Paradise
Producers: Chris Brown, Chris Fitchett
Associate Producer: Defrim Isai
Director: Evan Clarry
Writer: Steve Pratt
Distribution/presales: Hoyts, Nine Network
Synopsis: Under the Radar is a black comedy-thriller about four twenty-somethings - three boys and a girl - who set off on a journey to the Coast. Each has their own agenda; Brandon wants to get to the surf competition, Trevor wants to run away from the Home, Jo wants to escape the mob and Adrian can't remember what he wants, who he is, or who the other three are.

Adult Television Drama

THE POSTCARD BANDIT (92 minute telemovie)
Pacific Coast Entertainment Pty Ltd
Executive Producer: Ross Plapp
Producer: Matt Carroll
Director: Tony Tilse
Writer: Peter Gawler
Distribution/presales: Southern Star, Nine Network
Synopsis: The Postcard Bandit - that's what the media called Brendan James Abbott, because rumour has it he used to send postcards of his travels to the coppers chasing him. In a career spanning a decade BJ knocked off almost five million dollars of the banks' money and much of this has never been recovered. This is the story of BJ, it celebrates his spirit - it's a warts'n'all account of a unique, gifted Aussie bloke who took the wrong road and who is now paying a heavy price in solitary confinement in a maximum security facility.

Documentaries

CITY OF FEAR (55 minute documentary)
Hatchling Productions Pty Ltd
Producers: Cathy Henkel, Jeff Canin
Director/writer: Cathy Henkel
Distribution/presales: Films Transit International, ABC Video, ABC TV
Synopsis: City of Fear is a film about the need for justice, both legal and moral, in the face of escalating violent crime world-wide, particularly towards women. The filmmaker will return to Johannesburg, the city of her birth and now considered one of the most violent cities in the world. Sexual assault and rape have reached epidemic proportions: it is estimated that one woman is raped in South Africa every 83 seconds. The film is an attempt to find meaning in a seemingly meaningless crime, and to search for some form of justice, understanding and new insights into coping with unbearable personal trauma.

DREAM MERCHANTS: SELLING SUCCESS (4 x 30 minute Accord documentary)
Puzzle Media Pty Ltd
Producer/director: Nigel Traill
Associate producer: Anne Kenyon
Distribution/presales: ABC TV
Synopsis: Dream Merchants: Selling Success is a revealing four-part series going behind the facade of the success industry. We will meet four gurus, each with a different product. Over the course of a year we will follow some of the ordinary Australians attempting to use those products to turn their dreams into reality.

EINSTEIN'S WIFE (55 minute documentary)
Melsa Films Pty Ltd
Executive Producer: Paul Humfress
Producer/writer: Geraldine Hilton
Director: Nicola Woolmington
Distribution/presales: ABC Content Sales, ABC TV, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB)
Synopsis: This film explores the controversial subject of just how much Albert Einstein's first wife, physicist Mileva Maric, contributed to his theory of relativity.

THE GLUE FACTORY (52 minute Accord documentary)
Pony Films Pty Ltd
Producer: Ian Iveson
Director/writer: Rachel Landers
Distribution/presales: SBS
Synopsis: The Glue Factory recounts the epic & provocative story of Australian women jockeys and their extraordinary battle to compete with men on the track. Today horse racing is the only major sport in the world in which men & women compete equally…or so the theory goes. Like a dark version of National Velvet these women fought and fight an almost medieval culture of rigid tradition, discrimination, endemic sexual violence & harassment at odds with the glamorous image of Australian Racing Industry.

IF THEY WEREN'T CARTOONISTS THEY'D BE HIRED ASSASSINS (55 minute Accord documentary)
Evershine Pty Ltd
Producer/director: Helen Barrow
Distribution/presales: ABC TV
Synopsis: This documentary will focus on the unique skill of political and editorial cartoonists as they blend humour, politics and satire. Their pen can be a devastating weapon that pricks pomposity in the powerful and evokes sympathy for the exploited and down trodden.

LUCKY KINGS (52 minute documentary)
Handmade Productions Pty Ltd
Producer: Steve Jeffares
Director: Maciek Wszelaki
Writer: Sean Cousins
Distribution/presales: SBS, RTE, A&E, TV2, Fireworks
Synopsis: Across the globe, Lucky Kings takes us inside poker's furtive and exotic subculture. Over twelve months we follow the high stakes journey of a select few of the world's most talented and eccentric players as they compete with each other, and their own frailties, in a quest to win the ultimate prize - The World Series of Poker in glittering, cacophonous Las Vegas.

MOREE (55 minute Accord documentary)
Rymer Bayly Watson Pty Ltd
Producers: Judy Rymer, Bevan Childs
Director: Judy Rymer
Distribution/presales: ABC TV
Synopsis: Moree exhibits extremes of wealth and poverty and has been cursed by racial tension for generations. Dick Estens decided he was going to do something to change the racial impasse in his town. He wanted to get jobs for the Aboriginal community. This is a story about hope and of one community's search for a path to reconciliation.

SANDMAN IN SIBERIA (52 minute Accord documentary)
GNW TV Pty Ltd
Executive Producer/director: Ted Robinson
Producer: Angela Dunn
Distribution/presales: SBS
Synopsis: Steve Abbott, otherwise known as The Sandman, perennial loser of Radio Triple J, Triple M, 702 and Good News Week fame, returns with his mother to their ancestral home of Siberia to find out if rumours of an oil strike on family property are true. Part documentary. Part travelogue. Part Beverly Hillbillies.

STRANGERS IN TOWN (52 minute Accord documentary)
Jotz Productions Pty Ltd
Producer/director: Tom Zubrycki
Distribution/presales: SBS
Synopsis: When a car-load of Afghani asylum seekers arrive in a small town there are mixed reactions. Some in the town find the arrival of these exotic creatures exciting and go out of their way to make them welcome, while others are alarmed to find the homogeneity of the town disturbed by the arrival of people who look different.

THE TASTY BUST REUNION (52 minute Accord documentary)
Storm Productions Pty Ltd
Producer/writer: Esben Storm
Director/writer: Stephen MacLean
Distribution/presales: SBS
Synopsis: This documentary will climax with the reunion of the people who were stripped naked and searched at the raid at the Tasty Dance Club bust in 1994. We'll get a clear picture of the events of that fateful night and the ensuing court case where the victims took on and beat the Victorian Police Force.

THE WIDOWER (55 minute documentary)
Music Arts Dance Films Pty Ltd
Producer: Aanya Whitehead
Director: Kevin Lucas
Writer: Lyndon Terracini
Distribution/presales: ABC TV, SVT, Digital Classics
Synopsis: The Widower is a hybrid-documentary that dramatises a collection of autobiographical poems by Les Murray, one of Australia's most acclaimed writers. Murray's poetry is famous for its gently lyrical colloquialisms, laconic humour and potent imagery, encapsulating the essence of rural Australia.