In Development

A host of new feature film projects have just received a slab of development support funding.

Screen Australia has announced $424,000 in funding to support 15 upcoming Australian feature film projects. Eleven new film projects have been added to the development slate, alongside four filmmaking teams receiving continued support from Screen Australia.

Among the features to receive funding is the love story, Pink Mist, a new feature from writer/director Kim Mordaunt and producer Sylvia Wilczynski (pictured), the duo behind this year’s award-winning drama, The Rocket (which was selected as Australia’s entry to the Oscars).

The feature script Clara, based on the love triangle of legendary 19th century musicians Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, has also received funding. The dramatic film is set to be brought to life by writer/director Jocelyn Moorhouse and producer Sue Maslin.

Described as an exploration of family, love, trust, revenge and transformation, Faith Hope Love by writer/director Brendan Fletcher (Mad Bastards) and producer Angie Fielder (Wish You Were Here), along with The Fabulist, by writer Adam Gyngell and producer Ian Collie, about magazine editor William Fitzgerald as his life is changed by enigmatic con artist in Victorian England, have both been funded.

Writer/director Stephan Lance will be supported to adapt Erin McKean’s The Secret Life of Dresses, which follows a young woman who returns home when her aunt suffers a stroke and takes over her vintage dress shop; and writer Melissa Bubnic will also develop her feature script Jamaica, based on the novel by Malcolm Knox, which chronicles a ruined businessman’s last chance to act young with old friends, and is set to be directed by Robert Connolly.

Writer Tommy Murphy and producer Kylie Du Fresne will develop Holding The Man based on the memoir of Australian actor and activist Timothy Conigrave, with the project to be directed by Neil Armfield. Writer David O’Donnell will also receive funding for Sons of Salt, which has Jonathan auf der Heide attached to direct, and follows an ex-con attempting to pull his life together.

The romantic comedy, 40 30 30, by writer Geoffrey Atherden and producer Rosemary Blight will be funded, and follows Raquel whose dream of a perfect marriage is shattered when her perfect man declares her one of three candidates to be his wife. The new science fiction script Lucy Lucy, about a world with identical submissive female clones, is also in development from writers Adam Spellicy and Penelope Chai.

The drama Cartagena about a teenage assassin living in Colombia by writer Nam Le; the thriller Dog Eat Dog about a series of wild dog attacks by writer Simon Portus, have both received funding, alongside the real life drama of violinist Richard Goldner in forming Musica Viva, The Musician, by writer Joan Sauers; and the thriller Lonely Girl – penned by Lynne Vincent McCarthy and to be directed by Natasha Pincus – about a grief-stricken woman who kills a man and hides his body in her basement.

Originally published on FilmInk Magazine online, December 11, 2013.