the (red) set*

At last week’s Friday on My Mind – our FREE weekly industry talks – Robert Connolly who was our guest for the week ending August 7 talked about his latest project Balibo [which is poised to go out on screens nationally very shortly] and towards the end of the session in response to a question from the audience  an interesting bit of insight emerged.

The question was along the lines of  ‘Why has this year been such a good one for Aussie films?’
“Diversity”  was the answer ” Audiences like that”

And he’s right this year we have had  the following local feature productions grace our silver screens and do quite well at the box office too:

Australia, a full blown hollywood style epic;
Mary & Max, a claymation story about penpals;
Samson & Delilah, a Camera d’or winning story about life in Central Australia;
Beautiful Kate , a tale about letting go and reconciliation
and
the soon to be released Balibo, a political thriller set in East Timor in the 70s

Screen Australia, on which Robert Connolly serves as a board member, is apparently interested in continuing to make sure that a variety of  productions get made in Australia -  so there is a chance that we will have another crop of great and different films making their way to our screens in the not too distant future.

pic: Robert Connolly with host Rachael Turk during Friday on My Mind at AFTRS August 7.