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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-10-17 Daily Xml
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Adelaide Film Festival

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (16:45): I move:

That this council—

1. Acknowledges the Adelaide Film Festival being held from 10 to 21 October;

2. Recognises the opportunity to showcase South Australia and Australian filmmakers, performers, directors, production companies and the South Australian Film Corporation;

3. Notes the number of high-quality films at the 2018 event, particularly Hotel Mumbai and The Nightingale;

4. Encourages the South Australian government to have the Adelaide Film Festival as an annual event; and

5. Calls on the government to reverse $3 million in funding cuts to arts programs and institutions announced in the 2018 budget.

The Adelaide Film Festival is rapidly becoming an iconic event in the world of the arts and cinema. Variety magazine puts our festival in its top 50 unmissable film festivals; that is a fabulous endorsement for an event that is only 15 years old. Hopefully one day soon it will reach the status of other celebrated international events like Cannes, Toronto, Venice, Berlin, Tribeca and Sundance. There is no reason why it should not, going by the quality of films Australia produces annually.

South Australia has outstanding and award-winning talent in the fields of acting, writing, directing, cinematography, editing, sound, post-production and computer-generated effects by internationally recognised companies Rising Sun Pictures and Kojo. Our state has a long and distinguished history in film and television production. In the 1970s, thanks to some bold visionaries in the arts and politics, the South Australian Film Corporation was established, with studios at the old Philips site at Hendon.

A succession of high quality movies followed—to name just some of the hits: Sunday Too Far Away, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Storm Boy, The Club, Breaker Morant, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and, one of my favourites, Gallipoli, in which my one and only film experience as an extra, in the famous ballroom scene, shot in the magnificent marble hall at the railway station, ended up on the cutting room floor.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Such an iconic movie, and I ended up on the cutting room floor! There followed more contemporary titles like The Babadook, The Rover, Wolf Creek, 52 Tuesdays, Snowtown, Red Dog and of course Scott Hicks' Shine, which won a swag of awards including an Oscar for its star Geoffrey Rush.

The South Australian Film Corporation has showcased extraordinary acting talent. Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, Helen Morse, Jackie Weaver, Russell Crowe, Jack Thompson, Bryan Brown, Sam Neill and Anthony LaPaglia, and Hollywood has now beckoned for Tilda Cobham-Hervey and Teresa Palmer. There have been stand-out film directors like Rolf de Heer and Scott Hicks, who got his first break as a teenager in a road movie shot around Port Adelaide called Freedom.

Now we can add another to that list: Anthony Maras. Anthony, the youngest son of well-known property developer Theo Maras, is the director, writer and editor on Hotel Mumbai, which opened the 2018 film festival last week with its stars, acclaimed actor Dev Patel, Armie Hammer and Adelaide's rising star Tilda Cobham-Hervey. I can highly recommend this film. It is a gripping suspense thriller likely to pick up a swag of awards and almost entirely shot at the South Australian Film Corporation's new Glenside studios, which were converted to look like the lavish interiors of Mumbai's Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, which was attacked by terrorists 10 years ago.

Another featured film attracting huge attention here and overseas, particularly in Venice this year where it won the Special Jury Prize, is The Nightingale. Indigenous Australian actor Baykali Ganambarr won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for the best young actor at the festival for his role in the film, which received financial support from Screen Australia, the ADL Film Fest Fund, the South Australian Film Corporation and Screen Tasmania.

Enthusiastic and hardworking festival director Amanda Duthie has put together an exciting, eclectic program of feature-length films, shorts and documentaries. It runs until 21 October at various venues around the city and suburbs. There is something there for all cinematic tastes and I am informed ticket sales are strong and screenings are getting lots of bums on seats. The festival has been a biannual event since its inception in 2002, focusing strongly on local productions and it also features several overseas entries. This year is no exception.

It is the first Australian film festival to introduce an international competition in three categories, and the first to invest directly in film production through the ADL Film Fest Fund, which has delivered 100 projects including The Nightingale, which I mentioned earlier. These projects, from feature fiction, documentaries, shorts and TV series to interactive, augmented and virtual reality, have been screened internationally at other major festivals, winning over 100 international and 188 national awards. They have picked up gongs from Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Berlin and Sundance, an Emmy and three Australian nominations for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. I am tipping Hotel Mumbai or The Nightingale may well be the one this year.

Our film festival is an outstanding success story. Credit should go to former premier, Mike Rann, for his initiative to stimulate the local film industry, and to the previous government relocating the South Australian Film Corporation to new state-of-the-art studios at Glenside. It has breathed new life into our screen culture and investment in film production in the state. However, it was disappointing to see in the recent state budget that the Treasurer has clipped funding to the arts to the tune of around $3 million.

This is the Festival State. Our arts festival is world class. The Fringe and cabaret festivals are among the best anywhere in the world. There is a vibrant local theatre and music community, and the recent French masters exhibition pulled the biggest crowd ever seen at the Art Gallery. The art scene is thriving in this state, it puts money into our economy and drives tourism. The arts deserve far more support from the state government, and I call on the Treasurer to reconsider his miserly move and restore that funding.

It was also disappointing to see Screen Australia lose $50 million in federal funding. I just cannot understand the logic of this when prime ministers and MPs fall over themselves to have selfies with our biggest stars like Chris and Liam Hemsworth, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Naomi Watts, Margot Robbie and Cate Blanchett. They are our homegrown national cultural ambassadors to the world. Why would you want to slice the creative reel that makes them and produces them?

As for the film festival, its growth and reputation are clearly outstripping its two-yearly encumbrance. It has demonstrated that it can now stand on its own on the international stage and bring the spotlight on our city. It is time it became an annual event and I call on the government to consider this from next year or 2020. I commend this motion to the Legislative Council.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.J. Stephens.

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