Woodley’s heart in the right place

Film Victoria has announced over $1.3m of production investment for Films, Television, Online & Mobile Phone projects

Television projects include:

Kapyong
Television Pay, Factual One Off
Kapyong Pty Ltd
Producer / Writer / Director: Dennis Smith

In 1951, following a rout of the South Korean army, the Chinese People Volunteer Army pursued their enemy to the lines of Australian and Canadian troops still digging fall-back defences, 12 kilometres to the rear. Here, sometimes at the length of a bayonet, often in total darkness, individual is pitted against individual in a struggle between a superpower and a cluster of other nations from across the world. They fought for a valley, the ancient and traditional invasion route to Seoul. If it fell the southern capital and the war, was lost. The United Nations troops had the military advantage of the high ground and the Chinese the advantage of vastly superior numbers. The battle fought at Kapyong became the turning point of China’s spring offensive. The aim of the offensive was to finally drive the foreign troops out of South Korea and into the sea, What happened instead, changed the history of the Korean War. The Chinese were denied victory and forced back into negotiations.

Mad as Hell: The Peter Finch Story
Television Pay, Factual One Off
Lowlands Media Pty Ltd
Producer / Writer / Director: Robert de Young
While Mad as Hell maps the career of actor Peter Finch, the film is much more than a biopic – this film provides an opportunity to explore, through the lens of Finch’s career, the complex relationship between Britain and her Australian colony during the 1940s and 1950s. Peter Finch is the only actor ever to have received an Academy Award for Best Actor posthumously for his performance in the film Network (1976) where Finch, as apocalyptic live newscaster Howard Beale, tells a stunned American public to go outside and shout “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Professionally Peter Finch worked with some of the major stars and directors working in England and Hollywood including Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Errol Flynn, Virginia McKenna, Glenda Jackson, Audrey Hepburn, Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Shelley Winters, Terence Stamp, Chips Rafferty, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda, Angela Lansbury, Liv Ullmann, Faye Dunaway and William Holden. Throughout his life Finch had a reputation as a hell-raiser and his life and career is testament to his rebelliousness and his enduring interest in black culture.

Utopia Girls
Television, Factual One Off
Renegade Films Pty Ltd
Producers: Lucy Maclaren, Alex West, Joe Connor (EP)
Writers: Dr Clare Wright, Alex West
Director: Jasmin Pappas
In Utopia Girls historian Clare Wright presents an investigation into how and why Australia became the first western country to give women full political rights. The film covers the period between 1850 and 1900 when Australia became a nation. Australia’s unique history bred an amazing group of rebellious women who each played crucial roles in shaping the destiny of the country. But this being Australia, this tale of nation building is driven as much by raw luck, bizarre beliefs, wild miscalculation and rank opportunism as by high-minded idealism.

Twentysomething
Television, Fiction Long Form Series
High Wire Films Pty Ltd
Producer: Nicole Minchin
Writer: Jess Harris
Director: Paul Currie
Best friends Jess and Josh never went to uni, never had a clear talent and never had the drive to grow up. When their mind numbing jobs start wearing them down and they don’t have an impressive answer to the dreaded question “So what do you do with yourself?” they decide its time to become their own boss. Jess and Josh embark on an unusual entrepreneurial journey sharing massive highs, heartbreaking lows and plenty of drinks in-between. Whether it’s finding out how you got home last night or what to do with the rest of your life, the twentysomething world is never dull as Jess and Josh search for their big break.

Woodley
Television free to Air, Fiction Long Form Series
Bucket Tree Pty Ltd
Producers: Simon Wright, Andy Walker, Frank Woodley, Kevin Whyte (EP)
Writer: Frank Woodley
Woodley is a half hour visual comedy about a man who is as close as you will ever get to being a 40 year old child. While there is an innocence and charm to the man, and his heart is always in the right place, you can also understand that living with him would require the patience of a saint. Unfortunately his lovely and long-suffering ex-wife, Mel, could take no more and, as the series begins, we find Woodley living alone and sharing custody of their delightful 8 year old daughter. When Mel decides to first date and possibly marry Terry, a local psychiatrist, then mayhem ensues as Woodley attempts to win her back.

Moonsurfers
Free to Air, Children’s Television, Animation / CGI
Mumbo Jumbo Animation Pty Ltd
Producers: Cecile Blackman, Jenny Lalor (EP)
Writer: Philip Dalkin
Director: Peter Viska
Combining a unique retrofuturistic style with hip surf music, Moonsurfers is a comedy lifestyle adventure that follows a group of diverse interplanetary teens who live on Moonport, a bustling lunar stopover for intergalactic travelers Thanks to the moon’s fast orbit around the earth and a ombination of wind velocity, reverse gravitational pull and atmospheric pressure, it has created an entirely new extreme sport, Moonsurfing! Extreme adventure extreme comedy and extreme fun!