While it was seen much less than it deserved in Australian cinemas last year, the tribal romance Tanna is to get a US release in September.

After a surprise win at the Australian Directors Guild Awards last Friday – beating The Dressmaker, Last Cab To Darwin and Looking For Grace for best direction in a feature film – director Bentley Dean says Tanna will open initially in New York and Los Angeles before a potentially wider release.

A touching story about two young lovers caught in inter-tribal conflict, the film was devised by Dean and Martin Butler with the villagers of Yakel, who live by ancient traditions they call kastom on a Vanuatu island. They still hunt with bows and arrows, with the men wearing penis sheaths and the women grass skirts.

While Tanna was a festival favourite – winning a Critics Week prize in Venice and a special commendation in London – it was only released in a handful of Australian cinemas but has sold to multiple territories in Europe.

"It was purely a case of not getting it into enough cinemas," says Dean. "Every time it got in front of someone's eyes, it was always raved about."

Dean is considering a similar immersion in a different culture – "that embedded filmmaker style" – for his and Butler's next film.

The other development for the film is that DVD copies have been delivered to the Yakel people.

"They're to sell to tourists who come and visit," Dean says. "Any movie that's been made in Vanuatu, including the cinema release where it's been playing non-stop for three months, goes to support kastom in the villages."

Fassbender is 'soaking up knowledge' from Ridley Scott

Michael Fassbender as android David in Prometheus.

Michael Fassbender has spoken for the first time about how much he is enjoying shooting Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant in Sydney.

"I just love working with Ridley," the star of the coming X-Men: Apocalypse says. "It's just such an education being on set with him.

"I'm just trying to soak up as much knowledge as I can being there. He films multiple cameras – five, six cameras – and he's got such an attention to detail and so much passion and energy ...

"Having done a few big pieces now – these big concept films with 300 people on set – he runs them so smoothly. It's almost like doing this independent film."

Fassbender returns as the android David and a doppelganger in a sequel to Prometheus that is heading back – through three planned movies – to the start of the original Alien.

Read the full interview with Fassbender in S on Sunday.

Owen joins Schepisi's romantic thriller

Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche in Fred Schepisi's Words and Pictures.

Clive Owen must have enjoyed working with Fred Schepisi on the comic romance Words and Pictures a few years back.

The dapper British actor has joined the cast of Andorra, a romantic thriller the veteran Australian director is planning to shoot in Europe in the northern spring.

According to Variety, the film centres on an American who settles in the tiny country of Andorra, meets an Australian couple and unsettles the other natives when he becomes linked to a dead body floating in the harbour. It is based on a novel by Peter Cameron.

Push for roles for disabled cast and crew

American actress Jamie Brewer, best known for the TV series American Horror Story, is heading to Australia to push for more screen roles for people with a disability.

The first person with Down syndrome to take to the catwalk at New York Fashion Week – she won fans in a show called Role Models Not Runway Models – Brewer will speak at an event organised by Screen NSW and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School on May 25 about the need for more diversity in the screen industries.

"It's time all of us in the screen sector focused on creating opportunities for under-represented groups, including disabled cast and crew, in order that a multiplicity of visions and voices are seen and heard," says Screen NSW chief executive Courtney Gibson. "We'll have a stronger industry with richer content if we make it a priority."

Brewer will also shoot a short film made by students with a disability in Wollongong and take part in an acting workshop for filmmaking students with disabilities being run by Bus Stop Films at Sydney Community College.

AACTA announces new TV awards

The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts has announced five new awards as it calls for television entries.

One is for all television – best lifestyle program. After partnering with the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association, the other four are for "subscription-television only" – best new talent, best male presenter, best female presenter and best live event production.

That means more than 50 awards will be presented across feature film, television, documentary and short film at two events at Sydney's The Star – the Industry Luncheon on December 5 and AACTA Awards on December 7. Twenty-five of these awards will be for television.

The Academy has previously announced that its sixth awards will include best hair and make-up for the first time.

Madagascar director to talk Virtual Reality

The director of the Madagascar movies and Antz, Eric Darnell, is heading to Melbourne to talk about Virtual Reality.

The Wheeler Centre and Melbourne International Film Festival are presenting the talk Eric Darnell: Virtual Reality and Storytelling on August 13 at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image – part of a VR symposium at the festival.

With VR seen as a new frontier in immersive storytelling, Darnell, who is chief creative officer at Baobab Studios, will talk about such topics as building immersive worlds and rewriting the rules of storytelling.

Captain America's better than civil takings

Battling superheroes in Captain America: Civil War, which has stayed on top of the box office.

Captain America: Civil War dominated Australian cinemas on the weekend, taking $6 million to reach $23.4 million in just 11 days.

The largely well-reviewed superhero movie dropped by 57 per cent on its second weekend – better than Batman vs Superman's 65 per cent fall-off. It averaged a solid $9700 per cinema.

The comedy Bad Neighbours 2 did surprisingly well, opening with $2.4 million and a cinema average of $6400.

Benefiting from its topicality, Mothers Day's takings increased by a striking 71 per cent on its second weekend as it took $2 million.

Gentle Australian comedy A Month Of Sundays took another $109,000 to reach $397,000 on its second weekend.

Twitter @gmaddox