Director mounting film on Gallipoli hero

David Wenham (right) will play journalist CEW Bean.

Garry Maddox, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

A roll call of Australia's leading actors is falling in line for a new film on the well-known story about Simpson and his donkey to coincide with the centenary of the Gallipoli landing.

The producer, Danny Mackay, is hoping to shoot the $14.5 million film early next year with a cast that includes David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Sam Neill and Don Hany.

Yet to be cast is an actor to play the young stretcher bearer who has become famous for bravely ferrying wounded soldiers by donkey in one of the enduring stories from the Gallipoli campaign that has taken on mythological status.

In the three weeks before he was killed by enemy fire, John Simpson Kirkpatrick courageously brought many injured soldiers from the frontline to the beach for evacuation.

Mackay said the filmmakers were establishing ''a solid ensemble'' of actors while finalising the last $5 million of fund-raising.

Simpson is to be directed by Peter Andrikidis, best known for The Wog Boy sequel, The Kings of Mykonos, and the TV dramas Underbelly and Bikie Wars, with a script by Sam Meikle, who has written for Home and Away, Neighbours and Wild Boys.

''It seems to be the story that symbolises the invasion,'' said Mackay. ''If Simpson had been an American, you would have had six versions by now … We just haven't had the chance to do it yet.''

Wenham will play the journalist C. E. W. Bean, with Bryan Brown as Major-General William Bridges, who commanded the 1st Australian Division at Gallipoli, Sam Neill as the field hospital's Captain Buchanan and Hany as the Turkish commander Ataturk.

While Mackay concedes there are gaps in what is known about Simpson's life, the script has drawn on research from the many books on the Gallipoli landing and the army's history unit.

Two TV projects are also planned for the conflict's centenary in 2015 - a Gallipoli mini-series for Nine and a Foxtel mini-series on the journalists who covered the landing.

 

 

Turkish commander Ataturk (left) will be played by Don Hany.

David Wenham's killer performance

Richard Cawthorne as Dennis Allen and David Wenham as Andrew Fraser in Killing Time. Picture: Craig Borrow Source: Supplied

Darren Devlyn, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Andrew Fraser is the former silvertail solicitor whose drug-fuelled fall from grace earned him a stretch in Victoria's Port Phillip Prison.

David Wenham is one of Australia's most accomplished actors, with a string of credits includingThe Lord of the Rings, Moulin Rouge, 300, Van Helsing and SeaChange. In an inspired piece of casting, Wenham took on the role of Fraser in Killing Time, which ranks as one of the most outstanding local TV productions in years.

Fraser, who defended the likes of violent drug lord Dennis Allen, Jimmy Krakouer, Alan Bond and those accused of the Walsh St murders, has offered insight into the TV dramatisation of his life.

"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to watch your life dissected before your eyes with every fault and foible exposed for all to see," Fraser asks. "I have had it happen to me and can tell you it is extraordinarily confronting yet exciting, all at once.

"When I decided to write my first two books - Court in the Middle and Lunatic Soup - I made a conscious decision to tell my story, warts and all so when TV1 commissioned the books to become Killing Time I was under no misapprehension I was in for a fluffy, feel-good piece glossing over my total fall from grace.

"Once I met Ian David (writer of another standout piece of Aussie TV, Blue Murder), Ian made it clear he would write a hard-hitting series laying bare not only me, but the Melbourne legal fraternity, the coppers and the law.

"He certainly delivered. I spent many hours with the script-writing team and was impressed how fanatical they were to make sure the series was as accurate as possible, even if it meant painting me in a less than favourable light. To watch your life unravel in slow motion is like watching a train wreck. You don't want to look but you feel compelled to."

There are many frightful moments in Killing Time, none more memorable than Malcolm Kennard, as underworld figure Victor Peirce, having a vice-like grip on the ankles of a dead bikie. The bikie is headfirst in a 44-gallon drum in the scruffy backyard of a house in Melbourne's inner-suburban Richmond. A clinical Peirce jolts downward on the body, but it simply won't squeeze into the drum. The problem is solved when his crazed brother Dennis Allen (Richard Cawthorne) appears on the scene with a chainsaw.

Kennard's take on Peirce is that the criminal, gunned down in his car in Port Melbourne in 2002, was a tightly coiled individual who, without warning, could explode in rage. Cawthorne was equally powerful on screen and a revelation as unhinged drug dealer Dennis Allen.

"The casting of David Wenham as me is inspired," Fraser says. "He has nailed me. Colin Friels as my old client Lewis Moran and Richard Cawthorne as Mr Death, Dennis Allen, are the standout supporting cast. Lewis was understated, whereas Dennis was as mad as a March hare, right out there. Richard's portrayal is breathtaking."

Killing Time, Channel 7, Sunday, 8.30pm

Mystery box of suspects: there are all sorts

Louise Lombard and David Wenham in Dripping in Chocolate.

Brad Newsome, The Age, reports

Pay TV show of the week: Dripping in Chocolate, UKTV, Saturday, 8.30pm

David Wenham stars opposite Louise Lombard (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) in this agreeable romantic-thriller telemovie set in Sydney.

It all begins at night in very atmospheric, noirish style. Chocolatier Juliana Lovece (Lombard) seems almost to be in a sensuous rapture as she stirs and swirls her way through making a new batch of chocolates alone in her little shop. Outside, the rain is pouring on the streets of The Rocks as a blonde in red shoes enjoys a chocolate of her own. But the blonde is about to meet a sticky end, setting the story in train.

The detective who catches the case of the mysterious chocolate-eating blonde is one Bennett O'Mara (Wenham), a slightly rumpled sort who, we quickly learn, is forcing himself to ''detox'' from grog and greasy food. O'Mara is helped and hindered by younger colleagues Riley (Chelsie Preston-Crayford, who played Tilly Devine in Underbelly: Razor) and Carl (Rick Donald).

The investigation soon begins to point to state Planning Minister Stuart Verger (Geoff Morrell), who has been cheating on his wife (Caroline Brazier, Morrell's real-life wife). But when Verger turns up dead - briefly casting suspicion on Juliana - O'Mara has to look elsewhere for suspects. There's no shortage: Juliana's cocky boyfriend, a shut-in weirdo and a dodgy psychiatrist who seems to know everybody involved.

The telemovie, created by producers Sarah Smith and Julie McGauran, has its moments. Wenham and Lombard are terrific and the beautifully filmed chocolate-making sequences would set Nigella Lawson aquiver.

It's a clever story, well plotted with a few red herrings and a decent twist. But it doesn't engage or satisfy quite as well as it might. Part of the problem might be with the police characters. They don't talk with the laconic authenticity of top-drawer Australian police shows such as Phoenix. And some seem more dumb-cop stereotype than characters - Carl, for one, seems slow on the uptake for a presumed graduate of detective training school.

O'Mara is the one cop for whom writers Sarah Smith and John Ridley provide plenty of backstory and foibles but there are times you wish they had not. His dog needs a knee reconstruction but, instead, O'Mara goes and buys a ''natural'' remedy from a friend, apparently a drug dealer, and injects it into the dog. Really?

There's also an odd kind of atmospheric disjunct between the more romantic sequences and the workaday police-procedural ones - and between most of the movie and a sudden lurch into slasher-thriller territory towards the end.

All that said, it's a good yarn and a decent way to spend a few hours on a quiet Saturday night in. Wenham, as ever, is wonderful, while Lombard is a treat as well.

Cate Blanchett to direct her first film - an adaptation of Tim Winton's The Turning

Cate Blanchett is set to direct her first film. Picture: Noel Kessel Source: The Daily Telegraph

Vicky Roach, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Cate Blanchett is making her debut as a film director in a screen adaptation of Tim Winton's haunting short story collection The Turning.

Alice in Wonderland’s Mia Wasikowska and David Wenham will also direct segments of the ``omnibus'' film to be produced by Robert Connolly (The Slap, Balibo).

Amongst the other directors who will contribute to the ambitious project are Snowtown's Justin Kurzel, theatre director-of-the-moment Benedict Andrews and choreographer Stephen Page.

"Winton's iconic Australian short stories will come to life, showcasing acclaimed Australian talent as well as emerging directors, writers and producers,' said Screen Australia's Chief Executive Ruth Harley, announcing the project in the latest round of funding investments.

A film adaptation of Robyn Davidson's book Tracks, directed by John Curran (Praise, The Painted Veil) and produced by Emile Sherman and Iain Canning (the Oscar-winning team behind The King's Speech) was also given the green light by the film funding body.

Julia Roberts was attached to an earlier, 1993 film about Davidson's camel ride across the Australian desert that never got off the ground.

"There is quite a long history to this project,'' acknowledged Sherman

While no casting announcements have yet been made, two of Curran's last three films have featured Naomi Watts, who was in Sydney filming The Grandmothers with Robin Wright this week.

A supernatural horror story starring Miss Fischer's Essie Davis also made the cut in the latest round of funding announcements -- which will trigger close to $20 million in production, according to Screen Australia.

Film Red Dog, starring Rachael Taylor and Josh Lucas, leads nominations for 2011 IF Awards in November

Vicky Roach, Arts and Film Editor from The Daily Telegraph, reports

THIS year's IF Awards, which are voted for by the public, has a clear leader for best film.

Red Dog is two legs ahead of the competition for this year's IF Awards. The family film, which has taken $19 million at the box office in just nine weeks, has been nominated for seven awards, including best film, best director (Kriv Stenders), best actor (Josh Lucas) and best actress (Rachael Taylor).

Oranges and Sunshine, Jim Loach's hard hitting drama about forced child migration from the UK to Australia, follows closely behind with six nominations, including best film and best actor (David Wenham) and best actress (Emily Watson).

Also in contention for best film are the low-budget ensemble drama Face to Face, directed by Michael Rymer, and The Eye of the Storm Fred Schepisi's adaptation of Patrick White's novel.

Squaring off against Lucas and Wenham for best actor are Geoffrey Rush (The Eye of the Storm) and the entire male ensemble cast of Face to Face (Vince Colosimo, Luke Ford, Christopher Connelly, Matthew Newton, Robert Rabiah and Josh Saks).

Taylor and Watson also face stiff competition for best actress -- from Judy Davis (The Eye of the Storm), and the female ensemble cast Face to Face (Sigrid Thornton, Ra Chapman, Laura Gordon, Lauren Clair).

The IF Awards will be held at Sydney's Luna Park on November 16. The host will be Eddie Perfect.