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GOVERNMENT DOES GOOD
When Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer discovered that $18,000 of taxpayers’ money was about to be wasted showing several films—including The President Versus David Hicks, which already cost us $433,000—at an Indonesian movie festival, he apparently intervened. Result: funding withdrawn. This is a brilliant outcome, although David Marr seems unimpressed for some reason.
UPDATE. In other local film/television news, Harry Hutton is negotiating with the ABC over a beach riot blockbuster!
Completely OT:
Is it Chrismas down there yet, Tim?
Merry Christmas from Virginia, USA! :-D
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2005 12 24 at 01:47 PM • permalink"Nothing but bureaucratic flim-flam has since been offered to explain this bizarre, last-minute decision.”
Your film is bullshit and we won’t be wasting one more red fucking cent on it - is that a good enough explanation for you?
Posted by Ralph Wiggum on 2005 12 24 at 07:34 PM • permalinkThere’s already been a few fillums made in the Cronulla area ... Forty Thousand Horsemen and Puberty Blues are two that spring to mind ... look them up on IMDB ... and the TV show Blue Water High ... I can’t ever remember the coppers in that show tackling ethnic violence from their police station conveniently at North Cronulla Surf Club ... probably not a bad spot for a real police station, eh.
Dear Harry
Comrade Rachel has referred your your film proposal to the ABC’s wimmens collective and we have been workshopping it. Frankly your idea stinks. Too hetero and too white. You obviously don’t know the real Sydney like we at the ABC do. You’ll have to do better if you want to attract grants from the Australia Council, Film Commission and even (please don’t repeat this) Alexander Downer.
So,here’s our new script. Fatima, a young Lebanese Moslem, struggles against the oppresive patriarchal hierarchy of the Lebanese family. While at Cronulla, hidden in her burqa and guarded by her 10 brothers, she spies Brenda, a young Aboriginal lifesaver. They fall in love and secretly share a kiss (pan in on this slowly) behind the change room. But they are observed by evil white racists from Northies who drunkenly beat Brenda to death and rape Fatima, Aussie-style. Violated, Fatima is stoned to death by her brothers.
Harry, this is a story of contemporary Australia that should attract considerable interest at the Indonesian film festival.
Thanks for letting us pinch your idea.
Yours in sisterly affection,
ABC
Or this.
Based on the promise of 72 male virgins Fatima takes the road of training to be a suicide bomber. Shortly before heading off on her mission she strikes up a strong bond with the local dolphin pod. The multicultural panacea becomes reality as Cronulla becomes an east coast Monkey Mia where crowds make the pilgrimage to Cronulla to witness the taming of the dolphins by Fatima. Forgetting her mission for a brief moment due to her media fame Fatima touches the lives of all those that see her. One day out of the blue her brothers turn up to Cronulla and perform a systematic halal slaughter of the entire dolphin pod. Police and the Premier explain to the ignorant population that it was OK and that no charges need be laid as we need to respect their cultural differences.
Fast forward 12 months and Fatima is parachuted into a safe Labor seat to contest the next state election at the request of Sheik Taj El-Din Al-Hilaly in an ALP factional deal however carries out her original mission on the eve of the poll. Nobody had seen this coming, her family quoted as saying that only the day before she was excited about exploding onto the political scene.Posted by Hank Reardon on 2005 12 24 at 09:28 PM • permalink#6 Stevo
Ahhhhh, Puberty Blues...Brings back weirdly fond memories of my pubescent surfer lifestyling days before they were refined into oblivion by Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
It got me thinking though. Australian film has left quite an impression on many people - even on the far side of the globe. The cultural influence of Aussie films on my generation of Caribbean youth is akin to the catalytic effect US gangster movies and James Brown’s music had in inspiring the explosion of creativity unleashed through Jamaica’s empoverished youth who had essentially raised themselves within the darkened wombs of Trenchtown’s movie houses during the social tumult of the post colonial 50’s and 60’s.
My artistic and socially inclined circle of friends and I rejoice to this day in knowing - through the medium of film - that Aussies exist. We admire the crypto-documentarian images of adequately-sexed rebellious surfers polluting their sequined way at high speed across dystopian desertscapes whilst fabulously and flamboyantly shooting up every social construct in sight on the way to Alice Springs to climb that big red rock.
It’s nice to know that there exists a place, and a people who, after a hard (yet meaningful) day of boomeranging international drug barons, can still summon the calmness of spirits to relax with a case or three and maybe even a quick industrious brawl amongst ones amiably toothless mates. Afterward, it’s a short kangaroo hop home to the outback for constructive family bonding, which if I’m not misinformed by my own cinematic visions, usually entails wielding beeg knoives to groom pet koalas and carve up rogue crocodiles from the backyard billabong for dinner.
...Oh, and family bullroaring.Idyllic.
A return to dreamtime.Now, apparently this Harry Hutton fellow wants to ruin my general admiration for the typical Australian lifestyle by penciling a wave-hogging Omar Sharif and hip-hopping dolphins into the cultural narrative...WTF!
Thanks dude.
Thanks for selling out your own culture to consumerism.#10 monkeyfan:
great post ... I prefer the fillums of the quirky Paul Cox made in the same era as Puberty Blues ... such as Lonely Hearts, Man of Flowers and My First Wife ... all show a sensitive side to Australian life ... it might be hard to get them from your video store, but you only need to ask ...
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Yes, but… The money is still flowing for “The Jew Who Stole Ramadan,” where the Ladyboy Lions battle Zionist-Nazi surfers for supremacy on the beaches of Cronulla. I visualize something between Triumph of the Will and Gidget Goes Hawaiian.