With Disney reaping the financial benefits of live-action fairytales based on classic animated movies, two young Australian filmmakers have won a scriptwriting competition with a dark take on Cinderella.
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Penelope Chai and Matteo R. Bernardini's script Cinderella Must Die has won Australians in Film's Gateway LA Script Development Program from more than 350 entries, with their handsome prizes including $US10,000 ($13,300) in cash, two airfares to Los Angeles and networking meetings.
"Fairytales are a form of propaganda," Bernardini says. "So the idea behind Cinderella Must Die was to turn the original story completely on its head.
"Our script depicts the Ugly Stepsisters as the innocent victims and Cinderella as the villain in the form of a cunning social-climber who fabricates her own rags-to-riches narrative as a poisonous but highly effective act of propaganda."
The film from the winning script in the first program in 2015, Yolanda Ramke's Cargo, is in post-production with Martin Freeman starring. It will be the first Australian feature film to be released under the Netflix Original banner.
Kurosawa classics head for cinemas
Master Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa is revered by the likes of George Lucas and Martin Scorsese but his films are rarely seen on the big screen.
But that is about to change with David Stratton programming a retrospective called Essential Kurosawa that will tour the country from next month.
Ten films including Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, Kagemusha and Ran will screen at Melbourne's Australian Centre for the Moving Image from May 25 to June 8; at the Art Gallery of NSW and Dendy Opera Quays during Sydney Film Festival from June 7 to 18; and Canberra's National Film and Sound Archive's Arc cinema from June 14 to 30.
"The best of Kurosawa's films possess a grandeur combined with a common touch," Stratton says. "No one filmed action scenes like he did - his use of multiple cameras, long lenses and intricate editing combined to make these sequences unforgettable."
New talent recognised at directors awards
It seems there is no shortage of new talent emerging in Australian film. All five nominees for best direction of a feature film at the Australian Directors Guild Awards next month are first-timers.
The best known are Garth Davis for Lion, which is nearing the end of its Australian cinema run with an impressive $29.3 million, and Simon Stone for The Daughter.
They will be joined at the awards, in Melbourne on May 5, by Ben Young for Hounds of Love, Craig Boreham for Teenage Kicks and Jonathan Leahy for Skin Deep.
The nominees for best direction in a television or streaming drama series are more established names - Emma Freeman for Secret City, Leah Purcell for Cleverman, Rowan Woods for Rake, Tony Krawitz for The Kettering Incident. And up for best direction in a mini-series are Geoff Bennett for Brock, Kevin Carlin for Molly and Robert Connolly for Barracuda.
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