Sam and Tom McKeith had been struggling to finance Beast, a drama about a boxer seeking redemption after killing his opponent in a fixed fight, in Australia.

While showing one of their short films at the Busan film festival in South Korea, they met some Filipino producers who suggested shooting the film in Manila.

"They said it's a lot cheaper and the Philippines has a strong boxing culture," Sam McKeith says.

The decision worked out well for the brothers – Sam is 33, Tom 31 – but looked touch and go when they landed.

"We were flying pretty blind," Sam says. "We went over there and, with three weeks till principal photography, we didn't have any of the leads locked in and we hadn't really finished the script. So it was perhaps foolhardy in retrospect.

"But we rewrote the script over there then we found the lead in Chad McKinney [who plays boxer Jaime Grey] then we locked in Garret Dillahunt from the US [who plays his father] so it all took shape really quickly."

Shooting the film in Manila during the typhoon season proved challenging.

"The locations would be under water and we'd have to come back the next day," Sam says. "They also shoot very, very long days – 15 or 16-hour days – which took a bit of getting used to."

The Manila slums were also a dangerous place for a film crew.

"We had to be accompanied at all times by security and local police officers. We had to shoot quite quickly – our shooting style was really 'run and gun' following the action documentary style – because we weren't allowed to be in these locations for a particularly long period of time from a security stand point."

After making the film for less than $1 million, Beast has had a strong run on the Australian and international festival circuit, with Variety calling it a promising debut and noting "the McKeith siblings' observations of street life supply consistent interest in a generally well-tuned package" when it screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.

It opens at Sydney's Dendy Newtown and Melbourne's Australian Centre for the Moving Image on Thursday.

Says Sam: "We're really happy just to get a theatrical release because it seems to be tougher and tougher for Australian films, especially small ones, to get any kind of theatrical look-in."

Courtney shines as 'Nazi stud muffin'

WWII romance ... Lily James and Jai Courtney in The Exception.

After Terminator: Genysis, two Divergent movies and Suicide Squad, Jai Courtney is continuing to land juicy roles internationally.

The Australian actor's latest movie, the British World War II drama The Exception, has been picked up for US release after debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival last month.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Courtney plays "a Nazi stud-muffin" who has a torrid romance with "a slinky Dutch-Jewish lady spy" (Lily James from Cinderella) while both are working for the retired Kaiser Wilhelm (Christopher Plummer).

In a not exactly rave review, the entertainment trade paper went all Mills and Boon over Courtney's character: "With his Aryan eyes bright blue, concrete abs disfigured by a scar just painful-looking enough to make him sympathetic and an ineffable air of Weltschmerz, he's certainly one dreamy Panzer-man."

Despite James' Jewish character working undercover as a chambermaid in the Kaiser's household, with her parents and husband all recently murdered by the Nazis, the stud-muffin's charm wins her over almost instantly.

Brothers win $25,000 prize

Brothers Barak and Tomer Heymann have won the top prize worth $25,000 at the Israeli Film Festival which finished on the weekend.

Their documentary Who's Gonna Love Me Now? was named best Israeli film. It centres on a gay man who has been shunned by his family.

Somewhat provocatively, festival director Richard Moore says the film shows "a country and a democracy willing to engage in a mature debate about homosexuality, unlike many other Middle Eastern countries where you are likely to get your hand cut off or publicly flogged if you either practice or talk about [the subject]".

Tim Burton's latest has a promising start

After some disappointing results for his most recent movies – both as director and producer – Tim Burton found a receptive audience for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children in Australian cinemas on the weekend.

The fantasy adventure about a school filled with superpowered youngsters opened with a solid $4 million – averaging $10,500 a cinema. That was in line with its promising opening in North America and 58 other international markets.

The other big Hollywood movie that opened over the weekend, The Magnificent Seven, took a decent $3.2 million – averaging $8700.

On a buoyant weekend for family movies – no surprise given the attention on the AFL and NRL grand finals – no less than seven movies took more than $1 million.

The Secret Life of Pets continued to attract good audiences to reach $24.4 million.

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