Films about North Korea have an unfair advantage. The country is one of such baffling oddness that films told about it are often either tragic or outrageous, two extremes that make for memorable viewing. On the other hand, the nature of North Korea’s political situation means few films are indeed made about it. Titles like Solrun Hoaas’ Pyongyang Diaries in which the Australian filmmaker ventured to a North Korean film festival and gave us a glimpse of what it means to be a traveller in this land of fake smiles and concrete, and the giddy delight of Anna Broinowski’s Aim High in Creation in which she travels to North Korea to learn how to make propaganda films from the makers themselves.
This year we can add two more entertaining docs. Both are full of surprises that beggar belief at seemingly every turn: The Lovers and the Despot and Under the Sun.
This year we can add two more entertaining docs. Both are full of surprises that beggar belief at seemingly every turn: The Lovers and the Despot and Under the Sun.
- 9/27/2016
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
Matchbox Pictures. Nowhere Boys was named best children.s TV series and Mindful Media.s Redesign My Brain took the prizes for best factual series and best documentary, science, technology and the environment, at the 2014 Australian Teachers of Media (Atom) awards.
The best docudrama gong went to Electric Pictures. Enigma Man: A Stone Age Mystery in the awards presented at the Vca in Melbourne on Thursday night. In other documentary categories, Scarlett Pictures. Tender won the prize for general documentary, Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder.s JFK: The Smoking Gun collected the history prize and Unicorn Films. Aim High in Creation! won for social and political issues.
Best biography docu went to iKandy Films' 35 Letters and best arts docu was Pop Pictures. Sons and Mothers.
RocKwiz.s Brian Nankervis hosted the event attended by education and screen industry professionals, higher education students, screen funding body reps and sponsors. There were more than...
The best docudrama gong went to Electric Pictures. Enigma Man: A Stone Age Mystery in the awards presented at the Vca in Melbourne on Thursday night. In other documentary categories, Scarlett Pictures. Tender won the prize for general documentary, Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder.s JFK: The Smoking Gun collected the history prize and Unicorn Films. Aim High in Creation! won for social and political issues.
Best biography docu went to iKandy Films' 35 Letters and best arts docu was Pop Pictures. Sons and Mothers.
RocKwiz.s Brian Nankervis hosted the event attended by education and screen industry professionals, higher education students, screen funding body reps and sponsors. There were more than...
- 11/27/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
St Petersburg International Media Forum closes inaugural edition with world premiere of Serena.
Francois Ozon’s latest feature The New Girlfriend was voted as the Best of the Fest by the audience at the inaugural edition of the St Petersburg International Media Forum (Spimf) which closed on Friday evening with the world premiere of Susanne Bier’s Serena, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.
However, neither director Bier, nor any of the talent were in St Petersburg for the film, which Volgafilm will be releasing in Russian cinemas on October 30.
Although there was no formal competition for Spimf’s film programme, a jury of local film critics was formed to give awards for what they regarded as the best film and TV series showing in the 2014 line-up.
Australian film-maker Anna Broinowsky’s documentary Aim High In Creation, which screened in the Kor-kor sidebar about North Korean cinema, was named best film, while the Press...
Francois Ozon’s latest feature The New Girlfriend was voted as the Best of the Fest by the audience at the inaugural edition of the St Petersburg International Media Forum (Spimf) which closed on Friday evening with the world premiere of Susanne Bier’s Serena, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.
However, neither director Bier, nor any of the talent were in St Petersburg for the film, which Volgafilm will be releasing in Russian cinemas on October 30.
Although there was no formal competition for Spimf’s film programme, a jury of local film critics was formed to give awards for what they regarded as the best film and TV series showing in the 2014 line-up.
Australian film-maker Anna Broinowsky’s documentary Aim High In Creation, which screened in the Kor-kor sidebar about North Korean cinema, was named best film, while the Press...
- 10/12/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
A roundup of news from the inaugural St Petersburg International Media Forum includes a busy French delegation and a local controversy brewing over Leviathan.
The King Of Madagascar, a kind of Russian answer to the pirate adventure films à la Pirates of the Caribbean, is being set up as a $ 16m international co-production by producer-director Oleg Ryaskov’s Moscow-based Bft Movie.
Speaking at the opening of St Petersburg International Media Forum’s (Spimf) co-production market this morning, producer Ryaskov revealed that the project - which is based on real historical events abouta Russian expedition by Peter The Great to the island of Madagascar in danger of being thwarted by Great Britain’s King George - has Spain’s Smartline Spain and the Us casting company Scott Carlson Entertainment on board as partners and is currently in talks with French and German production companies to join.
Ryaskov added that he intends to have American, European and Russian...
The King Of Madagascar, a kind of Russian answer to the pirate adventure films à la Pirates of the Caribbean, is being set up as a $ 16m international co-production by producer-director Oleg Ryaskov’s Moscow-based Bft Movie.
Speaking at the opening of St Petersburg International Media Forum’s (Spimf) co-production market this morning, producer Ryaskov revealed that the project - which is based on real historical events abouta Russian expedition by Peter The Great to the island of Madagascar in danger of being thwarted by Great Britain’s King George - has Spain’s Smartline Spain and the Us casting company Scott Carlson Entertainment on board as partners and is currently in talks with French and German production companies to join.
Ryaskov added that he intends to have American, European and Russian...
- 10/6/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
A roundup of news from the inaugural St Petersburg International Media Forum includes a busy French delegation and a local controversy brewing over Leviathan.
The King Of Madagascar, a kind of Russian answer to the pirate adventure films à la Pirates of the Caribbean, is being set up as a $ 16m international co-production by producer-director Oleg Ryaskov’s Moscow-based Bft Movie.
Speaking at the opening of St Petersburg International Media Forum’s (Spimf) co-production market this morning, producer Ryaskov revealed that the project - which is based on real historical events abouta Russian expedition by Peter The Great to the island of Madagascar in danger of being thwarted by Great Britain’s King George - has Spain’s Smartline Spain and the Us casting company Scott Carlson Entertainment on board as partners and is currently in talks with French and German production companies to join.
Ryaskov added that he intends to have American, European and Russian...
The King Of Madagascar, a kind of Russian answer to the pirate adventure films à la Pirates of the Caribbean, is being set up as a $ 16m international co-production by producer-director Oleg Ryaskov’s Moscow-based Bft Movie.
Speaking at the opening of St Petersburg International Media Forum’s (Spimf) co-production market this morning, producer Ryaskov revealed that the project - which is based on real historical events abouta Russian expedition by Peter The Great to the island of Madagascar in danger of being thwarted by Great Britain’s King George - has Spain’s Smartline Spain and the Us casting company Scott Carlson Entertainment on board as partners and is currently in talks with French and German production companies to join.
Ryaskov added that he intends to have American, European and Russian...
- 10/6/2014
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Fumi Nikaido will receive the inaugural Screen International Rising Star Award at the 13th New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff), set to run from June 27-July 14.
The festival will open with the international premiere of Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s crime thriller Overheard 3 and close with the North American premiere of Park Chan-kyong’s documentary Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits.
The previously announced North American premiere of Umin Boya’s period baseball epic Kano is the Centerpiece Presentation.
Taiwan’s Jimmy Wong Yu will collect the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award, while the Star Asia Award will go to Hong Kong’s Sandra Ng and South Korea’s Sol Kyung-gu.
The roster features a spotlight on local Hong Kong cinema called Hong Kong Forever!, a Sir Run Run Shaw Tribute and a focus on South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae.
Overall the Nyaff will present 60 features, among them Lou Ye’s Blind Massage, Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s My Man...
The festival will open with the international premiere of Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s crime thriller Overheard 3 and close with the North American premiere of Park Chan-kyong’s documentary Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits.
The previously announced North American premiere of Umin Boya’s period baseball epic Kano is the Centerpiece Presentation.
Taiwan’s Jimmy Wong Yu will collect the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award, while the Star Asia Award will go to Hong Kong’s Sandra Ng and South Korea’s Sol Kyung-gu.
The roster features a spotlight on local Hong Kong cinema called Hong Kong Forever!, a Sir Run Run Shaw Tribute and a focus on South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae.
Overall the Nyaff will present 60 features, among them Lou Ye’s Blind Massage, Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s My Man...
- 6/3/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Fumi Nikaido will receive the inaugural Screen International Rising Star Award at the 13th New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff), set to run from June 27-July 14.
The festival will open with the international premiere of Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s crime thriller Overheard 3 and close with the North American premiere of Park Chan-kyong’s documentary Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits.
The previously announced North American premiere of Umin Boya’s period baseball epic Kano is the Centerpiece Presentation.
Taiwan’s Jimmy Wong Yu will collect the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award, while the Star Asia Award will go to Hong Kong’s Sandra Ng and South Korea’s Sol Kyung-gu.
The roster features a spotlight on local Hong Kong cinema called Hong Kong Forever!, a Sir Run Run Shaw Tribute and a focus on South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae.
Overall the Nyaff will present 60 features, among them Lou Ye’s Blind Massage, Kazuaki Kumakiri...
The festival will open with the international premiere of Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s crime thriller Overheard 3 and close with the North American premiere of Park Chan-kyong’s documentary Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits.
The previously announced North American premiere of Umin Boya’s period baseball epic Kano is the Centerpiece Presentation.
Taiwan’s Jimmy Wong Yu will collect the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award, while the Star Asia Award will go to Hong Kong’s Sandra Ng and South Korea’s Sol Kyung-gu.
The roster features a spotlight on local Hong Kong cinema called Hong Kong Forever!, a Sir Run Run Shaw Tribute and a focus on South Korean actor Lee Jung-jae.
Overall the Nyaff will present 60 features, among them Lou Ye’s Blind Massage, Kazuaki Kumakiri...
- 6/3/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The Great Gatsby dominated. Aacta.s technical and short films awards today, collecting gongs in all six craft categories for which it was nominated, plus the Aacta award for outstanding achievement in visual effects.
The co-production Top of the Lake bagged two TV trophies while Matchbox Pictures. Nowhere Boys, created by Tony Ayres, was named best children.s TV series.
The TV documentary prize went to Redesign My Brain, which explores the revolutionary new science of brain plasticity, written and directed by Paul Scott and produced by Isabel Perez and Scott for ABC TV.
Writer-director Nick Verso's The Last Time I Saw Richard, produced by John Molloy, was honoured as best short fiction film. Developed and funded through Screen Australia.s Springboard program, the short is a prequel to the upcoming feature film Boys In The Trees, tracing the friendship between two teenagers in a mental health clinic in...
The co-production Top of the Lake bagged two TV trophies while Matchbox Pictures. Nowhere Boys, created by Tony Ayres, was named best children.s TV series.
The TV documentary prize went to Redesign My Brain, which explores the revolutionary new science of brain plasticity, written and directed by Paul Scott and produced by Isabel Perez and Scott for ABC TV.
Writer-director Nick Verso's The Last Time I Saw Richard, produced by John Molloy, was honoured as best short fiction film. Developed and funded through Screen Australia.s Springboard program, the short is a prequel to the upcoming feature film Boys In The Trees, tracing the friendship between two teenagers in a mental health clinic in...
- 1/28/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Director Anna Broinowski is no stranger to confrontation; kicking off her documentary career with Hell Bento, a film that exposed subsections of the Japanese underworld. More recently she directed a startling fib-filled terror tale about Muslim romance called Forbidden Lie$. It was probably less of a surprise, then, to see her giddily striding around North Korea, always smiling and happily accepting any problems coming her way. Thankfully, Aim High In Creation is not a searing indictment of the repressed state of the Dprk, it instead seeks to utilize one of its most cherished resources: the film industry.Anna is on a mission that toes the line in the film more than once. She seeks to stop Coal seam gas mining in her local suburb and park sides....
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[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 8/9/2013
- Screen Anarchy
Six of the 10 homegrown feature-length films that will have their world premieres at the Melbourne International Film Festival (Miff) have been supported by the Miff Premiere Fund, including anthology drama The Turning and Anna Broinowski’s documentary Aim High In Creation!.
Australia’s oldest and largest film festival runs from July 25 to August 11, opening with Pedro Almodóvar’s I’m So Excited! and closing with Jc Chandor’s All Is Lost, starring Robert Redford.
The 17 programme strands include activism on film and new Arabic cinema, both of which artistic director Michelle Carey says “effortlessly suggested themselves”, plus such perennial favourites as the backbeat music program, accent on Asia, night shift, international panorama and documentaries.
The Turning is an adaptation of the country’s most popular Australian book of 17 short stories set in one locale, interconnected and written by acclaimed author Tim Winton. A different person has directed each. Some are first-timers including actors David Wenham and Mia Wasikowska...
Australia’s oldest and largest film festival runs from July 25 to August 11, opening with Pedro Almodóvar’s I’m So Excited! and closing with Jc Chandor’s All Is Lost, starring Robert Redford.
The 17 programme strands include activism on film and new Arabic cinema, both of which artistic director Michelle Carey says “effortlessly suggested themselves”, plus such perennial favourites as the backbeat music program, accent on Asia, night shift, international panorama and documentaries.
The Turning is an adaptation of the country’s most popular Australian book of 17 short stories set in one locale, interconnected and written by acclaimed author Tim Winton. A different person has directed each. Some are first-timers including actors David Wenham and Mia Wasikowska...
- 7/3/2013
- by Sandy.George@me.com (Sandy George)
- ScreenDaily
Anna Broinowski, an Australian documentary-maker, was given unprecedented access to some of North Korea's top secrets but, for once, it wasn't to do with politics or nuclear weapons. Instead, she went to uncover the fascinating, if somewhat unusual, world of North Korean cinema, controlled for so many years by the nation's “Creative Commander”, former Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il. The documentary Aim High In Creation, currently in post-production, began as Broinowksi's mission to create a short film following the rules laid out in the former North Korean leader's treatise Manifesto on the Art of the Cinema.
- 6/14/2013
- The Independent - Film
This article first appeared in If Magazine issue #150
Producer Lizzette Atkins justifies the theatrical nature of Aim High In Creation! on several levels: the scale and scope of the ideas; its experimental style; the broad interest in the closed society of North Korea; and director Anna Broinowski.s cinematic eye.
.And Anna has proven she can sustain a story for 90 minutes,. says Atkins, referring to the bold Forbidden Lie$..
If the various threads can be woven neatly together, this intriguing project could be a pearler. Cinematic propaganda is the key theme and the film follows Broinowski as she travels to North Korea to meet with that industry.s leading lights and examine former leader Kim Jong-il.s passion for cinema and the filmmaking manifesto he published. Back in Australia, applying the advice she got on a script she took with her, Broinowski makes a short about a community overcoming gas frackers . after all,...
Producer Lizzette Atkins justifies the theatrical nature of Aim High In Creation! on several levels: the scale and scope of the ideas; its experimental style; the broad interest in the closed society of North Korea; and director Anna Broinowski.s cinematic eye.
.And Anna has proven she can sustain a story for 90 minutes,. says Atkins, referring to the bold Forbidden Lie$..
If the various threads can be woven neatly together, this intriguing project could be a pearler. Cinematic propaganda is the key theme and the film follows Broinowski as she travels to North Korea to meet with that industry.s leading lights and examine former leader Kim Jong-il.s passion for cinema and the filmmaking manifesto he published. Back in Australia, applying the advice she got on a script she took with her, Broinowski makes a short about a community overcoming gas frackers . after all,...
- 3/14/2013
- by Sandy George
- IF.com.au
Screen Australia says it has not mismanaged its finances by spending its annual production funding in just six months - a state of affairs which it says reflects the strength of the local film industry.
The government screen agency revealed in mid-December 2012 that it had spent its entire annual $42 million drama production allocation due to the unprecedented number of quality feature film and television projects seeking support. The shock announcement was reminiscent of the agency's abrupt decision to cut its investment cap in 2009 while several films were mid-financed. That decision.threw several major Australian productions into dissaray including The Tree and the biggest box office hit of.2010, Tomorrow When the War Began (Omnilab Media had to increase its investment at the last minute to ensure production).
Overspending on such a scale has never occurred before, even going back to the era of Screen Australia.s predecessor funding arm, the Film Finance Corporation.
The government screen agency revealed in mid-December 2012 that it had spent its entire annual $42 million drama production allocation due to the unprecedented number of quality feature film and television projects seeking support. The shock announcement was reminiscent of the agency's abrupt decision to cut its investment cap in 2009 while several films were mid-financed. That decision.threw several major Australian productions into dissaray including The Tree and the biggest box office hit of.2010, Tomorrow When the War Began (Omnilab Media had to increase its investment at the last minute to ensure production).
Overspending on such a scale has never occurred before, even going back to the era of Screen Australia.s predecessor funding arm, the Film Finance Corporation.
- 2/6/2013
- by Brendan Swift
- IF.com.au
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