Producers of narrative features and feature documentaries fear that reducing the Producer Offset for films to 30 per cent will have a crippling impact on theatrical releases.
They say the government’s proposal to double the minimum qualifying Australian production expenditure (Qape) threshold for feature length content to $1 million will exclude many lower-budgeted films and feature docs.
Screen Producers Australia CEO Matt Deaner predicted the media reforms announced today will slash production by at least 50 per cent and remove thousands of jobs from the sector as well as opportunities for audiences across the world to engage with Australian stories.
Reducing the Offset could well mean the end of the line for many Australian feature films, he said.
“The effective abolition of children’s content quotas, the watering down of drama and documentary requirements and the halving of requirements for subscription TV doesn’t meet the government’s articulated desire for forward-thinking policy-making,...
They say the government’s proposal to double the minimum qualifying Australian production expenditure (Qape) threshold for feature length content to $1 million will exclude many lower-budgeted films and feature docs.
Screen Producers Australia CEO Matt Deaner predicted the media reforms announced today will slash production by at least 50 per cent and remove thousands of jobs from the sector as well as opportunities for audiences across the world to engage with Australian stories.
Reducing the Offset could well mean the end of the line for many Australian feature films, he said.
“The effective abolition of children’s content quotas, the watering down of drama and documentary requirements and the halving of requirements for subscription TV doesn’t meet the government’s articulated desire for forward-thinking policy-making,...
- 9/30/2020
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
Screen Australia-funded ‘Alick and Albert’ (Photo: Freshwater Pictures).
Screen Australia has decided to postpone the introduction of the revised documentary programs from July 1 until 2021, to the dismay of some factual filmmakers who wanted the new regime to happen sooner.
Announcing the move, Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason said: “Documentary has a unique set of challenges in this current situation and many creators in this space were already operating in difficult circumstances. As such, my focus right now is on giving the documentary sector as much stability as possible.”
The existing documentary programs including the Producer Equity Program (Pep) will remain in place for the rest of 2020. The budget for documentary in 2019/20 remains unchanged and Mason said the documentary team headed by Bernadine Lim is now working on a very large number of new applications.
In a letter to Lim from 360 Degree Films’ Sally Ingleton on behalf of the Australian Independent Documentary Group,...
Screen Australia has decided to postpone the introduction of the revised documentary programs from July 1 until 2021, to the dismay of some factual filmmakers who wanted the new regime to happen sooner.
Announcing the move, Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason said: “Documentary has a unique set of challenges in this current situation and many creators in this space were already operating in difficult circumstances. As such, my focus right now is on giving the documentary sector as much stability as possible.”
The existing documentary programs including the Producer Equity Program (Pep) will remain in place for the rest of 2020. The budget for documentary in 2019/20 remains unchanged and Mason said the documentary team headed by Bernadine Lim is now working on a very large number of new applications.
In a letter to Lim from 360 Degree Films’ Sally Ingleton on behalf of the Australian Independent Documentary Group,...
- 4/16/2020
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
Jenni Meaney and Trevor Graham in Asti.
I’ve just escaped from Asti, in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, where I’d been filming for 10 days. We fled in the nick of time, with our rushes and gear. But we left something of ourselves behind, bonds of friendship, bound more tightly by the danger of the coronavirus.
The moments of goodbye were awful. Not the usual, abbraccio, a hug and kiss on both cheeks, that is molto Italiano. Just a wave and a smile and a big ‘ciao’ or goodbye. But the smile was so half-hearted. Would this be the last time we would see each other? Would we get out of Italy?
What would be the destiny of our friends and colleagues we were leaving behind – the many families we’ve been working with to make our film, Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution.
Together with cinematographer Jenni Meaney,...
I’ve just escaped from Asti, in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, where I’d been filming for 10 days. We fled in the nick of time, with our rushes and gear. But we left something of ourselves behind, bonds of friendship, bound more tightly by the danger of the coronavirus.
The moments of goodbye were awful. Not the usual, abbraccio, a hug and kiss on both cheeks, that is molto Italiano. Just a wave and a smile and a big ‘ciao’ or goodbye. But the smile was so half-hearted. Would this be the last time we would see each other? Would we get out of Italy?
What would be the destiny of our friends and colleagues we were leaving behind – the many families we’ve been working with to make our film, Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution.
Together with cinematographer Jenni Meaney,...
- 3/15/2020
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
Graeme Mason.
Screen Australia expects to support the same number of documentary projects each year despite the proposed scrapping of the Producer Equity Program (Pep).
The Pep program had no qualitative controls and was becoming unsustainable due to the sheer volume of people who were trying to access that scheme, according to Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason.
Mason told a Senate Estimates committee in Canberra earlier this week that the creatively-assessed completion fund for low budget projects, which the agency is proposing to replace Pep, would help producers develop projects and at completion.
Asked by Labor Senator Anne Urquhart if the proposed funding regime may result in fewer projects getting assistance, Mason said: “It would be fair to say that some would not be eligible or would not be successful that could have been in the past.
“In the last two years the scheme was going so far over its...
Screen Australia expects to support the same number of documentary projects each year despite the proposed scrapping of the Producer Equity Program (Pep).
The Pep program had no qualitative controls and was becoming unsustainable due to the sheer volume of people who were trying to access that scheme, according to Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason.
Mason told a Senate Estimates committee in Canberra earlier this week that the creatively-assessed completion fund for low budget projects, which the agency is proposing to replace Pep, would help producers develop projects and at completion.
Asked by Labor Senator Anne Urquhart if the proposed funding regime may result in fewer projects getting assistance, Mason said: “It would be fair to say that some would not be eligible or would not be successful that could have been in the past.
“In the last two years the scheme was going so far over its...
- 10/24/2019
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
‘Backtrack Boys’ director Catherine Scott is among those who spearheaded the campaign.
More than 250 filmmakers have co-signed an open letter calling for a “radical overhaul” of government policy in order to sustainably support the independent documentary sector now and into the future.
The letter, from the newly formed Australian Independent Documentary (Aid) group, argues that recent policy changes have undermined the viability of the independent documentary sector and its ability to produce distinct and original Australian content for both local and international audiences.
It calls variously for Screen Australia to work with the public broadcasters to create a dedicated strand on Australian public broadcast television for original Australian documentary, and for the federal agency to stop allocating funds to foreign majority owned companies at development and production stage; to increase funding support for original Australian formats; recognise cinema-on-demand as a legitimate form of cinema distribution, and to establish a dedicated fund for international co-production.
More than 250 filmmakers have co-signed an open letter calling for a “radical overhaul” of government policy in order to sustainably support the independent documentary sector now and into the future.
The letter, from the newly formed Australian Independent Documentary (Aid) group, argues that recent policy changes have undermined the viability of the independent documentary sector and its ability to produce distinct and original Australian content for both local and international audiences.
It calls variously for Screen Australia to work with the public broadcasters to create a dedicated strand on Australian public broadcast television for original Australian documentary, and for the federal agency to stop allocating funds to foreign majority owned companies at development and production stage; to increase funding support for original Australian formats; recognise cinema-on-demand as a legitimate form of cinema distribution, and to establish a dedicated fund for international co-production.
- 3/5/2019
- by jkeast
- IF.com.au
‘Gurrumul’
While Australian feature documentaries are punching above their weight at home and internationally, leading filmmakers say the sector is facing several daunting challenges.
Some are critical of Screen Australia’s continued funding of TV programs based on overseas formats. Others lament the lack of support for one-off docs from Sbs and the ABC.
And there is widespread dissatisfaction with the federal government’s inaction over imposing local content quota obligations on streaming services.
“Despite the digital era presenting new opportunities, most of us working in the sector are facing a grim and uncertain future,” veteran filmmaker Tom Zubrycki tells If.
“Fashioning a career from making documentaries has never been easy. As one colleague commented: ‘We are awaiting the new dawn, it’s not there yet.’”
Australian Directors Guild CEO Kingston Anderson observes: “Australian documentary directors are producing world class documentaries in cinemas and on television. But the continued increase...
While Australian feature documentaries are punching above their weight at home and internationally, leading filmmakers say the sector is facing several daunting challenges.
Some are critical of Screen Australia’s continued funding of TV programs based on overseas formats. Others lament the lack of support for one-off docs from Sbs and the ABC.
And there is widespread dissatisfaction with the federal government’s inaction over imposing local content quota obligations on streaming services.
“Despite the digital era presenting new opportunities, most of us working in the sector are facing a grim and uncertain future,” veteran filmmaker Tom Zubrycki tells If.
“Fashioning a career from making documentaries has never been easy. As one colleague commented: ‘We are awaiting the new dawn, it’s not there yet.’”
Australian Directors Guild CEO Kingston Anderson observes: “Australian documentary directors are producing world class documentaries in cinemas and on television. But the continued increase...
- 1/10/2019
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
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