The State Film Authority will be there for film as industry only, as is the case in all the other states, except Victoria. Victoria is moving more now into supporting non-commercial films.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
National film industries tend to move in cycles. In Australia right now, we're on a high, a feeling of potential, which as yet shows no sign of flagging. But the word 'industry' is misleading. A small national cinema has no industry in the Hollywood sense.
I guess in Australia every film is sort of an indie film because there are no studios.
Film is not a national business. It's international. And its centre will always be Hollywood.
The traditional Hollywood system is pretty rigid, but the film scene in, say, South Africa is booming with a lot of possibilities. If you have the cameras and reasonable capital, you can put your film in theatres next to 'Guardians of the Galaxy.' A great example of that was Kagiso Lediga's film 'Blitz Patrole.'
I think the British industry is set up to support British film, if we make films that enable them to support it. If you don't make a commercial film, distributors can't get behind it. If they don't get behind it, the film doesn't do well.
It's good to have a governing body to oversee matters in making of films, but you can't blame films for what is happening in society.
I think, often with Australian films, if an Australian film has been given the seal of approval by an offshore festival or an offshore release, then it does mean a lot to a local audience.
In the first years after 1989, films were partly financed from the state's budget as well as by public television. Still, except for a few special cases, most films are made this way.
There is no filmmaking legislation because distributors are not interested in sharing their money with the film industry - for instance, by giving a percentage of ticket sales back to filmmakers.
We are the only state that does not have a State Film Corporation there to support the commercial industry.