Director Paul Goldman's 'Director's Statement' for the film reads: "Australian Rules tells the story of a young white boy growing up in a small coastal town in Australia. It's about all the kinds of courage it takes to grow up in a country that still refuses to. It's about taking a stand, about the responsibilities of manhood and nationhood. It's about relationships: between fathers and sons, mothers and sons, husbands and wives, blackfellas and whitefellas. It's also about the courage it takes to love. I wanted to make a film that talked back to this big, secret country that we live in."
This film was financed with the participation of Palace Films and Istituto Luce. Beyond Films Limited handled international sales.
This film was produced with the assistance of the SBS Independent, the Australian Film Finance Corporation, Showtime Australia, the South Australian Film Corporation, and the Adelaide Festival of Arts 2002.
Work on the screenplay for this movie began even before its source novel it is
based on was published. Paul Goldman, already good friends with the author and
soon-to-be co-screenwriter Phillip Gwynne, read the manuscript and felt immediately
that the book, titled 'Deadly, Unna?', had legs as a film.
Debut produced screenplay for a theatrical feature film of the film's screenwriters Paul Goldman and Phillip Gwynne the latter of whom was also the movie's source novelist.