The 66th Cannes Film Festival is officially underway with Baz Luhrmann’s 3D take on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby opening the festival. Co-written by regular collaborator and client Craig Pearce, the film boasts an enviable cast with Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton and Isla Fisher.
The Great Gatsby will be in Australian cinemas on Thursday May 30.
We are thrilled to announce that Debra Oswald has joined Cameron’s Management. Debra is the Co-Creator and Head-Writer of the Channel Ten/Southern Star smash hit Offspring. Debra’s other tv credits include The Secret Life Of Us, Bananas In Pyjamas, Wild Side and Police Rescue. She’s written many successful stage plays, including Dags, Mr Bailey’s Minder and Gary’s House, and she’s also written children’s fiction. Debra has been nominated for and won many awards, including the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, AFI Award, AWGIE Award, New York Festival Award and The Rodney Seaborn Playwright’s Prize.
David Williamson’s play Happiness opens tonight at the Ensemble Theatre. Roland Makepeace knows what makes people happy. Why wouldn’t he? He’s an eminent professor of psychology who has devoted his life to scientifically investigating human well-being. But his theories are sorely tested when his wife meets an old suitor and his daughter threatens to go right off the rails. This sharply observed comedy suggests that theory can sometimes fall well short of reality and that finding happiness is easier said than done.
To buy tickets click here.
Great news today with the US adaptation of Rake being picked up for a full series at Fox. Congratulations to Peter Duncan, co-creator and executive producer on the US series and fellow Australian EP’s of Richard Roxburgh and Essential Media’s Ian Collie. The series stars Greg Kinnear as Keegan Joye, the brilliant, charming criminal defense attorney with a brilliantly destructive and chaotic personal life to match. The pilot was written by Peter and directed by Sam Raimi with Miranda Otto and Bojana Novakovic also starring. Fox have now released a trailer, which is available to watch here.
In Australia, the third series of Rake is currently in development.
Congratulations to Kate Mulvany and Patricia Cornelius who have both received nominations in this years Griffin Award. Kate was shortlisted for her pay The Rasputin Affair and Patricia was given a Highly Commended for her play Big Heart. The Griffin Award recognises an outstanding play or performance text that displays an authentic, inventive and contemporary Australian voice. The winner will be announced June 14th.
Congratulations to Julie Lynch who took out the gong for Best Costume Design for Salome in the Opera Category for the 2012 Green Room Awards held in Melbourne last night. Salome dominated last night’s Opera category winning five out of nine awards. It picked up Best Production, Best Conductor (Simon Hewett), Best Female Principle (Cheryl Barker) and Best Male Support (Thomas Hall). Brian Thomson (Set) and John Rayment (Lighting) also won along side Julie for Best Design.
Congratulations to Jessica Hobbs and Jessica Redenbach on receiving awards at the 2013 Australian Director’s Guild Awards held on Friday. Jess Hobbs won the TV Mini Series Category for her direction of Fremantle’s Devil’s Dust, which screened on the ABC last year and starred Anthony Hayes and Ewen Leslie. Jessica Redenbach won in the Short Film category with Tender, the short film having screened at Clermont-Ferrard and Melbourne Film Festivals.
Big week for Australian television drama. On Sunday night, Channel Seven’s new period drama, A Place to Call Home launched. Congratulations to all on the wonderful ratings, with 2.7 million tuning in to watch it nationally and in particular to Noni Hazlehurst for her betrayal of matriarch, Elizabeth Bligh and to Xanthe Heubel for her Costume Design.
On Wednesday, Fremantle’s Wentworth starts on Foxtel’s SoHo. The show is a revamp of Prisoner, the cult series that began in 1979. Graeme Blundell in ‘The Australian’ described the new series as, “highly cinematic HBO look… intense and glossy, violent and intelligent.” Giula Sandler was a writer on the series and Jet Wilkinson was one of the directors.
Production began this week on the second series of Redfern Now, produced by Blackfella Film for the ABC. Returning once more are Adrian Russell Wills, again writing for the series and also directing an episode, Felicity Abbott as production designer and Dany Cooper as editor. Ernie Dingo will also be joining the cast this season.
Finally, the ABC this week announced that the new 13-part relationship drama The Time of Our Lives will start on Sunday June 16. Judi McCrossin was co-creator, co-producer and principal writer on the series with Blake Ayshford also writing.
Cameron Creswell is pleased to announce writer Sean Cook has joined the agency.
Sean is an established screenwriter who is based both in the UK and Australia. He has written extensively for UK television with credits that include the BBC drama/thriller Spooks, multiple episodes of the long running BBC drama Holby City, Channel 4 serial Hollyoaks and BBC telemovie Yesterday We Were In America.
Sean has created and developed a number of TV projects for the BBC, ITV and production companies Ruby Films, Scott Free, Company Pictures, The Ink Factory and Wall to Wall.
He has several feature scripts in development and is working on a series in the UK for Fremantle and Radical Media.
The Rocket, written and directed by Kim Morduant with production design by client Pete Baxter, has continued to wow at international festivals. This time the film has taken top prizes at Tribeca where it won Best Narrative Feature, non-professional actor award and the top Audience Award. The film has previously screened at Berlin where it won a Crystal Bear for Best Film in the Generation Kplus category.
The film has been garnering great reviews. The Playlist describes it as “crowd pleasing and enjoyable, but admiringly respectful and carefully considered.”