The director of both the hit Red Dog and the prequel Red Dog: True Blue is halfway through filming what he describes as a suspenseful drama called Australia Day that stars Bryan Brown, Shari Sebbens (The Sapphires), Sean Keenan (Lockie Leonard), Matthew Le Nevez (The Kettering Incident) and Jenny Wu (Secret City).

"With every year that Australia Day happens, Australians are beginning to interrogate what that day means," Stenders says. "This film is going to contribute to that conversation."

Racism will be among the hot topics it will tackle.

"It's focused on a number of issues," Stenders says. "It's about who we are as a country and what we actually stand for.

"We've become a diverse country and the film examines who we are now and where we're going."

Like the Oscar-winning Crash, Australia Day centres on characters from different backgrounds, including a farmer, a Chinese illegal immigrant, a Persian family and an Indigenous girl, whose lives intersect in Brisbane.

"It's very Altmanesque," Stenders says. "It's primarily four stories that are seemingly disconnected, but as you watch the film you realise they're all connected."

He believes Foxtel is pioneering a new type of film in this country with Australia Day.

"It's part of a new model that we're going to see more of. It's obviously something that started in America with Netflix and Amazon - the idea of subscriber-financed films. Now it's a brave new world in terms of distribution."

And in more news from Australian film ...

Mentoring a new breed of projects

Producer Bruna Papandrea will mentor Sarah Shaw. Photo: Australians in Film/Corbis

Some fascinating projects emerged as Australians in Film announced that four big names will mentor four rising talents in Los Angeles over the next year.

Producer Bruna Papandrea, who was Reese Witherspoon's partner on Wild and Gone Girl until their recent split, will mentor Melbourne producer Sarah Shaw (Snowtown, Balibo).

She is working on composer Jed Kurzel's feature directing debut, Ivan Lendl Never Learnt to Volley, a darkly comic sports drama about a father (played by Denis Menochet from Inglourious Basterds) with a fanatical desire to see his son become a tennis champion.

Jed's director brother Justin, whose films include Snowtown, Macbeth and the coming Assassin's Creed, will produce a film that is inspired by the brothers' experiences as teenage tennis prodigies.

Shaw is also developing a feature film adaptation of Nick Cave's novel The Death of Bunny Munro, about a middle-aged lothario who goes on an out-of-control road trip with his son, and the feature documentary Lister: Adventure Painter, about street artist Anthony Lister, from director Eddie Martin (All This Mayhem).

Writer-director Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Collateral) will mentor Josh Tanner, who is adapting his short film The Landing, a sci-fi thriller about a man trying to find out what really landed on a Mid-Western farm in 1960, into a feature film and is also developing a supernatural horror film called Contact Lost.

Production designer Deborah Riley (Game of Thrones) will mentor Felicity Abbott (Redfern Now, Bran Nue Dae) while producer Eden Gaha (MasterChef, The Biggest Loser) will take on Breanna Roe (Snake Sheila, The 100+ Club) whose next project will be the adventure series Young, Wild and Almost Free, which follows four young Australians as they take their extra baggage on the road.

The one-year MentorLA Program is aimed at supporting the rising careers of Australian talent.

Mirren yes, Aquaman TBA

Helen Mirren is a definite. But Aquaman is still to be confirmed.

The Oscar-winning star of The Queen will be in Melbourne in the first quarter of next year to shoot the Spierig brothers' Winchester House.

She will play Sarah Winchester, the millionaire heiress to the Winchester Arms fortune who built a famous mansion, the Winchester Mystery House, that is considered to be haunted.

Although it's been described as a horror film, producer Tim McGahan, who worked with Michael and Peter Spierig on Predestination, says it is actually a supernatural thriller.

"The house is a haunted house and Sarah Winchester was tortured by these ghosts," he says. "That's the world that we're in but it's very much a human story."

While the film will be post-produced in Queensland, McGahan says they will shoot in Victoria so they can use houses with similar architecture to the real Winchester House in San Jose.

"We'll build some elements of the house - some on stage - and work with locations," he says. "We've scouted seven or eight Victorian mansions there."

While it is thought that high-flying Australian director James Wan will shoot the DC Comics movie Aquaman in Queensland next year, starring Jason Momoa, Amber Heard and Michael Kenneth Williams, that shoot is yet to be confirmed.

Melbourne to get world's biggest cinema screen

Fans gather for a 12.01am screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens at IMAX Melbourne in December last year. Photo: Wayne Taylor

The mantle of the world's biggest cinema screen is about to pass from Sydney to Melbourne.

First IMAX Melbourne is reopening at Museum Victoria this week after a temporary closure for the installation, tensioning and painting of a new screen to enhance the laser projection that was installed last year.

Then, in less than three weeks, IMAX Sydney will close for three years for the construction of a new 20-storey building at Darling Harbour that includes a six-star hotel, restaurants and shops.

The cinema's chief executive Mark Bretherton says he hears the Melbourne cinema is already preparing to claim the title of "world's biggest screen" once that happens.

It's no coincidence that the two biggest screens are in this country.

"The company that launched IMAX into Australia really had big vision, excuse the pun," Bretherton says. "They really saw some potential in IMAX and thought if you're going to do it, it makes sense to have a chain of them for economy of scale.

"And if you're going to do it, do it well. Don't try and squeeze it into a small space. Really build a big screen."

IMAX Darling Harbour will close with a screening of The Dark Knight on September 25.

"It was the first feature film that had been shot using IMAX cameras and it was for a long time far and away our most successful film," Bretherton says. "Whenever we've had revivals of films, it's been the one that's been the most demanded. It just shows off IMAX to its best."

Only Avatar and Star Wars: The Force Awakens sold more tickets than The Dark Knight in the cinema's history.

Pets roar

Successful preview weekend ... The Secret Life of Pets.

After a few so-so weeks, The Secret Life of Pets was a shot of energy in Australian cinemas last weekend.

While the animation officially opens this week, it took $1.9 million from just previews (averaging a decent $7100) to top the box office chart.

It was well ahead of the thriller Don't Breathe, a surprise hit in the US the previous weekend, which took $1.3 million (averaging $7400). The adventure-thriller Nerve also topped $1 million - just - first time up.

Two well-reviewed films deserved to open better than they did - with a strong performance by Mel Gibson, the thriller Blood Father took $263,000 (averaging $3400) and Terence Davies' drama Sunset Song took just $68,000 (averaging $4000).

Jackman movie adds more cast

Hugh Jackman poses for a selfie with fans at an Eddie The Eagle screening in March. Photo: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

There had been hopes that Australian director Michael Gracey and star Hugh Jackman would film the P.T. Barnum musical biopic The Greatest Showman here but it is now gaining momentum for a shoot in the US.

The cast of the movie, centring on the famous showman who gulled the public while creating the Barnum and Bailey Circus, keeps getting stronger.

Already joining Jackman on the movie are Zac Efron (as Barnum's right-hand man), Michelle Williams (as his love interest) and Zendaya (as a trapeze artist).

Now Variety reports that Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation) will play Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind.

"I always try to get films made back here," Jackman told Channel Ten last year, confirming that he had discussed shooting the latest Wolverine instalment and The Greatest Showman here. "For me, that's the holy grail."

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