Talent lines up for Cambodia badlands drama

PRINCIPAL photography begins on Monday on Say Nothing, the new Australian film starring Teresa Palmer and Joel Edgerton.

Writer and director Kieran Darcy-Smith tells Reel Time he had "never felt more alive" ahead of cameras rolling. "I've been waiting for the pressure but I don't feel much pressure yet because it all seems to be falling into place," he says. Darcy-Smith's psychological drama and mystery tells the story of four friends on a Southeast Asian holiday, where one goes missing. The film, also starring Darcy-Smith's wife, co-writer Felicity Price, and Antony Starr, will film in Cambodia in the new year after a Sydney shoot. Darcy-Smith admits he has a love affair with the region having written his first script while travelling there after leaving drama school in 1996.

"The places we're shooting are pretty crazy, the badlands," he says of his filming locations near southern Cambodian coastal town, Sihanoukville. "It's really important to me that it's a credible world and a credible story and shooting Cambodia in Sydney just wasn't going to cut it." He says he feels fortunate the film managed to secure Palmer and Edgerton while their international careers are taking off. Edgerton, who met Darcy-Smith at drama school, later becoming his best man, is about to perform opposite Jennifer Garner in the Disney film, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, while Palmer's latest film, I Am Number Four, is expected to be one of the main sci-fi blockbusters of 2011. Angie Fielder will produce the film in association with Blue Tongue Films with funding from Screen Australia, Screen NSW and Fulcrum Media Finance. Hopscotch Films will distribute the film in Australia and New Zealand.

TWO Australian animated films have made the list of 33 films to qualify for consideration as nominees for best animated short at the coming 2010 Academy Awards. It's a hefty list that includes new shorts from Pixar (the wonderful Day and Night which preceded Toy Story 3), the Road Runner's return at Warner Bros in 3D, and new films from the legendary Bill Plympton and two other former nominees, Tomasz Baginski and Don Hertzfeldt. That said, Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing, adapted by Tan and Andrew Ruhemann, has swept all before it thus far and must be a strong chance to make the final five nominees. Reel Time is yet to see the other local contender, Chris Kezelos's Zero, but it too has a long list of awards alread and is nominated for an AFI Award.

AUSTRALIAN audiences have again ignored an Australian genre film, with the accomplished western Red Hill, starring Ryan Kwanten, only managing $110,000 in its first weekend despite warm reviews and media interest. A weekend in which the seventh Harry Potter film earned another $6.7 million (for $25.85m in 10 days) and a new Robert Downey Jr road trip comedy, Due Date, opened with $2.7m, is hard to read. But Red Hill's screen average of $1912 didn't compare so well with screen averages for independent foreign films including Monsters ($3343), Agora ($5707) and Winter's Bone ($2830). But the question is whether it will result in a sudden shift in development thinking among our film agencies though, after a rapid shift towards genre filmmaking this year.

MELBOURNE family crime drama Animal Kingdom has picked up yet another award, nabbing the best screenplay prize for David Michod at the Stockholm International Film Festival. Debra Granik's US indie drama Winter's Bone was named best film.

THE fourth Asia Pacific Screen Awards will be presented on the Gold Coast tomorrow. The awards, honouring films from the region, will choose from 31 films from 15 countries. Guests will include best actor nominees Tony Barry and Indian star Atul Kulkarni, and best actress nominees Tejaswini Pandit from India and the Chinese star of leading nominee, Aftershock, Xu Fan. The ceremony will be webcast at www.asiapacificscreenawards.com and on the Australia Network on January 9.