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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-10-19 Daily Xml
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South Australian Film Industry

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Arts. How is the South Australian government supporting the South Australian screen industry?

The Hon. A. MICHAELS (Enfield—Minister for Small and Family Business, Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs, Minister for Arts) (14:34): Thank you to the member for Adelaide and, yes, I am very pleased to be able to talk about our support for the screen industry here in South Australia.

The screen industry is a really important part of arts, culture and creative industries here in South Australia. We have been committed over the past 18 months or so to supporting the sector, and this side of the chamber has been committed to doing that over 50 years. In fact, it was a Labor government under Premier Don Dunstan that set up the South Australian Film Corporation in 1972, which is an incredible part of our screen sector here in South Australia.

We also had former Premier Mike Rann invest $50 million to redevelop the Glenside precinct, where we have the Adelaide Studios. Also under a Labor government, we had the Adelaide Film Festival being established in 2003 to celebrate then the 30th anniversary of SAFC. Last night, we had the opening of the Adelaide Film Festival—a really important night to open the 2023 Adelaide Film Festival at the beautiful Piccadilly theatre in the member for Adelaide's electorate—and the first annual Adelaide Film Festival, thanks to the Malinauskas government.

Under this government, led by our Premier, we have invested in screen not only by bringing the Adelaide Film Festival in line with our other great festivals, by annualising it with a $2 million investment in last year's budget, but this year we also committed a further $2 million for the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund to help the festival in its mission to support local independent filmmaking.

The Adelaide Film Festival was the first Australian film festival to establish an investment fund of this type, and it has enabled premieres of over 150 projects over that time, including what have become global blockbusters. Talk to Me was at last year's festival closing night by the RackaRacka brothers, the Philippou brothers, and that has gone incredibly well in the United States and around the world. Hotel Mumbai, directed by Anthony Maras and starring Dev Patel, was also thanks to the investment fund.

This year's festival has more than 130 films with 43 countries participating. We have 27 world premieres and 38 Australian premieres taking place. Last night, when we opened the festival, we had two remarkable South Australian films: Kitty Green's The Royal Hotel, which stars Julia Garner and Hugo Weaving and was filmed here in South Australia and produced by Academy Award-winning company See Saw Films; and Elena Carapetis' Blame the Rabbit, which was an incredible short film that opened the film festival last night.

We close the film festival in about 10 days with My Name is Ben Folds, I Play Piano. That is directed by our incredible South Australian talented director Scott Hicks and supported again by the investment fund. We also have another Scott Hicks film with its world premiere here: The Musical Mind. That will explore the remarkable ability of four extraordinary musicians to channel their unique instincts and individual neurodiversity into sublime musical creations. To celebrate that world premiere, I am hearing whispers that the legendary David Helfgott and Silverchair's Daniel Johns might be joining Scott on the red carpet.

South Australia is increasingly being recognised as a powerhouse of screen in Australia and recognised around the world for its talents here. We continue to secure major screen projects, and the Malinauskas government is continuing to support the screen sector. In fact, additional support includes the $5.2 million provided to the SAFC to partner with the ABC for some ongoing pipeline of quality Australian productions here in South Australia, and there are many other supports that we are offering the screen sector.

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