For Tait Brady, managing director of Palace Films, the question of whether there is something wrong with Australian films is clearly an incendiary one: ‘It’s just a disgraceful beat-up by journalists who should know better.’ A certain frustration is not surprising: Palace Films is notable for its commitment to movies, including Australian ones, that don’t fit the Hollywood blockbuster template, and its list is full of such critical and commercial successes as Chopper and Japanese Story.
We were discussing one of the latest Australian films distributed by Brady’s group, Love’s Brother, due for release in April. He was explaining the crucial role played by a distributor, not only in the screening of a film, but in getting it even made at all. To qualify for a subsidy from Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC), Love’s Brother, when still a screenplay, had first to demonstrate a commitment from a distributor, a producer and an international sales agent. It has negotiated innumerable hurdles since then, and must soon face the final one: the critics who will largely determine its fate. If there is any justice it should do well. It is a well-crafted, curiously magical and romantic story of Italian settlement in Australia depicted with humour and restraint A major coup for its screenwriter and director Jan Sardi (screenwriter for Shine) was the casting of Giovanni Ribisi who gives a brilliant performance as the tortured Angelo, the brother of the title. It has the potential to appeal to an audience which has enjoyed films such as Chocolat and yet one senses that any new Australian title has now to face a certain home-grown prejudice.
Brady concedes that over the last couple of years a few duds have landed on our screens, mainly lowbrow comedies like The Wannabes and Takeaway, courtesy of a joint finance project between the Macquarie Bank and Channel Nine and obligingly distributed through Hoyts. Some were good, some partly good and some bombed. Brady points out that ‘Most countries, Germany in particular, turn out many similar comedies solely for domestic consumption. They usually don’t travel well as they are built around locally popular TV personalities and comedians and depend on that familiarity for their drawing power’.
Not a hanging matter then, surely, if some of ours miss, considering the silliness and tedium of many of the American comedies that are released here year after year. But, says Brady, ‘Journalists went into a