Mia Wasikowska named Star of the Year by Australian International Movie Convention

Australian actress Mia Wasikowska is currently in France filming . Source: AFP

 

 

James Wigney, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Rising Aussie star Mia Wasikowska got a bonus birthday present today with news she has been named as the Star of the Year by the Australian International Movie Convention.

The Canberra-born actor, who turns 24 today, was honoured by the convention, which opened on the Gold Coast last night, for an already stellar career that includes the HBO hit In Treatment and whose movies including Alice In Wonderland, Stoker and Lawless, have made more than $1 billion at the box office.

Wasikowska will next be seen in Tracks, director John Curran's adaptation of Robyn Davidson's memoir of her epic journey on foot across the Australian desert in 1977 accompanied by four camels and a dog.

Tracks screened in competition at this year's Venice Film Festival, had a gala screening at the Toronto Film Festival, and opened the Adelaide Film Festival last week.

The movie was Wasikowska's first Australian feature film since the 2007 monster croc movie Rogue. Since then she has acted opposite Johnny Depp, Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair and drawn praise from the likes of Glenn Close and Meryl Streep.

"It's a real honour to have this award," she said. "The film was very special for me - it gave me the chance to be able to work in Australia again for the first time in a long time and to reconnect with the Australian industry."

Wasikowska is currently in France filming the title role in the coming film adaptation of the literary classic Madame Bovary.

Mia Wasikowska stars in film of Robyn Davidson's book 'Tracks', about camel journey across Australia

Mia Wasikowska in new film Tracks, based on Robyn Davidson's 3200-kilometre trek across Australia. Picture: Supplied

 

The Daily Telegraph reports

Robyn Davidson's 3200-kilometre foot journey across Australia accompanied by four camels and a black dog has never really ended.

Her 1977 trek catapulted Davidson into an unexpected media storm, from which came a book deal a few years later and a career as a writer and traveler. More than 30 years on, her book recounting the journey, Tracks, has been turned into a film starring Australian actor Mia Wasikowska and directed by John Curran.

"I think even writing the book all those years ago changed the journey," Davidson, now 62, said in an interview before the world premiere of the Tracks in competition at the Venice Film Festival. While writing it in "this horrible, pokey flat in London" two years after the fact, Davidson said she experienced an incredible feat of memory.

"I swear I remembered every single campsite over a period of nine months. As soon as the book was finished, it was gone. It was as if the book ate the memory," she said. "I wonder now if the film is going to copy the book in some sort of way, so people, and even I, remember it in some weird confused way."

The book, which was translated in to 18 languages and has been part of the Australian school curriculum, had been optioned many times for films that were never made.

Davidson said she is "delighted" other filmmakers didn't get to make their versions of the film and that it went to Curran, an American who has lived in Australia, saying his film "is the good one." Her only condition was that she wanted Wasikowska, a fellow Aussie, to play her.

The two women met on a trip to the desert so Davidson could show the young actress a few things about camels.

"I thought, 'Oh, she is she is so tiny and frail. How is she going to muster the sort of earthiness?'" Davidson recalled.

"The next time I saw her was at a shoot at Ayers Rock, and she was transformed. She was wearing my clothes, she had hairy legs. She was a little toughie. It was amazing."

Tiny and frail is exactly how many viewed Davidson when she showed up in Alice Springs in 1975 to prepare for the trek eastward to the Indian Ocean. She spent more some two years scraping together money and learning to train the camels that would accompany her. Eventually she sought sponsorship from National Geographic, which set a condition that a photographer would capture images at intervals.

Along the way, Davidson had to face down charging feral camel bulls, track down her own camels when they went missing, suffered the loss of her faithful dog, and eventually faced a growing media circus as word of her feat spread.

She also was befriended by Aborigines, including one elder, Mr. Eddy, who accompanied her through sacred lands, and was taken in for brief respites by the few white settlers living in the outback.

Davidson also developed an enduring friendship with National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan, played in the film by Adam Driver, despite her initial resentment at his periodic intrusions.

She still is at a loss to explain why she undertook the journey.

"I suppose the most I can say is I had a kind of instinctive understanding I needed to do something very demanding of my life in order to make an individual of myself, in order to pull all these rather unprepossessing bits together, and forge a person."

Davidson went on to become a prolific writer and lived two years with nomads in India, which she said, was "the most extreme and difficult" thing she has ever done. "That made this look like a cakewalk," she said.

The bonds she forged with those she met on her on her trans-Australian journey, including the camels, remained strong. Mr Eddy, she said, made her an honorary wife.

And the camels retained their loyalty years after. She visited them once in western Australia. After playing and cuddling them for an hour, she turned to walk back 16 kilometres to the homestead.

"They fell in line behind me, following me all the way," she said.

Blockbuster Aussies making home movies

On set during shooting of the film 'The Great Gatsby' at White Bay in Sydney. Picture: Stephen Cooper Source: The Daily Telegraph

Vicky Roach, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Cashed-up Australian film makers are enticing a growing number of our A-list exports back home to work, according to production figures released yesterday by Screen Australia that reveal a bumper year for the local industry.

Toni Collette, Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Sam Worthington and Xavier Samuel all made $8-$30 million films in Australia in the last financial year.

When the two big studio-funded blockbusters - Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby and Stuart Beattie's I, Frankenstein - are included in the mix, Australian feature production totalled $296 million in 2011/12, the second highest figure on record.

And the trend looks set to continue in 2012/2013 with Rachel Griffiths, Joel Edgerton, Mia Wasikowska and Guy Pearce all confirmed to appear in projects green-lit for the coming months, alongside high profile international imports such as Robert Pattinson and Ewan McGregor.

"This is not a coincidence. This is a pattern," said Screen Australia's chief executive Ruth Harley.

"And it's because the films are of sufficent scale to attract this major talent."

The increased budgets are also luring our established filmmakers back home.

Before shooting Mental with Collette in Queensland last year, PJ Hogan (Peter Pan, Confessions of A Shopaholic) hadn't made a film in Australia since Muriel's Wedding (1994).

And honorary Australian John Curran, who began work on the Robyn Davidson story Tracks in SA earlier this month with Wasikowska in the lead role, hadn't worked here since Praise (1998).

After the international success of his crime thriller Animal Kingdom, director David Michod could have shot his follow up anywhere in the world. He has opted to shoot his futuristic Western The Rover, with Pearce and Pattinson, in SA early next year.

In the past five years, the number of Australian features being made for between $8 and $30 million has more than doubled (to an average of seven per year), according to figures provided by Screen Australia to complement their annual drama report released today (Friday).

This coincides directly with the introduction of the Federal Government's Producer's Offset scheme.

"It's not that everybody is putting more money in their pocket. These are ambitious films," said Harley

The actual number of films (28) produced in 2011/12, however, was significantly down on the five year average (34).

Harley identified this as a shift from quantity to quality.

There were parallels in television where 2011/2102 also saw a strong performance in high-end adult dramas such as Underground: The Julian Assange Story , Howzat and Puberty Blues.

"The trend again is towards higher production values, higher budgets," said Harley.

"There are fewer hours and more money spent. This is resulting in fantastic, quality drama."

Most powerful players in Australian film

Joel Edgerton, Actor Photo: Anthony Johnson AWJ

The Sydney Morning Herald reports

Winning awards, financing movies or scoring magazine covers is no longer enough to be a major player in the Australian film industry. Rob Lowing crunched the numbers to discover who the real heavy-hitters are.


1 SAM WORTHINGTON (actor, 3796 points)

Avatar is just the gift that keeps giving. Sam doesn't set the photo agencies alight and his Clash of the Titans was undermined by a ballyhooed sequel Wrath of the Titans and a Raspberry Award nomination for worst ripoff. But solid dramas The Debt and Man on a Ledge helped. And no one seethes as cinematically as our Sam …
Year ahead: steady

2 CHRIS HEMSWORTH (actor, 2540 points)

The 29-year-old went stratospheric because of his roles in 2012's top-grossing film (so far), The Avengers, and also Thor and Snow White and the Huntsman.
Year ahead: up (thanks to sequels to the above).

3 GEOFFREY RUSH (actor, 1540 points)

Rush's combination of box-office gold (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides; The King's Speech) is boosted by a willingness to return home for local gems (Bran Nue Dae; Eye of the Storm).
Year ahead: steady

4 MIA WASIKOWSKA (actor, 1145 points)

The 23-year-old has barely been seen home recently, moving steadily from blockbusters such as Alice in Wonderland to smaller dramas such as Jane Eyre, Albert Nobbs and The Kids are All Right. She's back for the lead in Tracks.
Year ahead: up

5 STUART BEATTIE (writer, director, 1086 points)

The internationally renowned scriptwriter (the man behind the characters in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) made his directorial debut with the AFI Award-winning Tomorrow, When the War Began. Pity about that Razzie for Beattie's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra script.
Year ahead: up

6 LIAM HEMSWORTH (actor, 823 points)

Chris's little brother scored his own lucrative franchise (The Hunger Games), was anointed into the action-man club (The Expendables 2) and rated ''hotter'' than his brother (photo-agency-wise) thanks to his high-profile romance with Miley Cyrus.
Year ahead: up

7 GUY PEARCE (actor, 621 points)

Film critics like him more than the photographers but Pearce's consummate acting skills shone in Hollywood sci-fi (Prometheus) and Oscar winners (The Hurt Locker,The King's Speech). But he was happy to come home for juicy supporting roles (Animal Kingdom). His latest, Lawless, has already racked up $48 million overseas.
Year ahead: steady

8 ROSE BYRNE (actor, 517 points)

Byrne has barely been home since her Two Hands break-out success and she doesn't rate with most local photo agencies. But she had a monster hit with Hollywood's Bridesmaids and her trashy pop star stole Get Him to the Greek.
Year ahead: steady

9 EMILE SHERMAN (producer, 468 points)

Wins at the Oscars and the BAFTAs (and that worldwide box-office) made the The King's Speech producer our biggest behind-scenes player. He also produced Oranges and Sunshine and his coming projects include the adaptation of Robyn Davidson's desert memoir, Tracks.
Year ahead: up

10 CATE BLANCHETT (actor, 412 points)

No local movies for Cate (but sterling theatre contributions). Her Robin Hood box-office and ''warm'' photo rating keeps her a point above co-star Russell Crowe.
Year ahead: steady

11 RUSSELL CROWE (actor, 411 points)

Just two outings in the past three years (The Next Three Days, Robin Hood) mean Crowe missed the top 10. A lead role (singing?!) in the coming Les Miserables could change that.
Year ahead: up

12 HUGH JACKMAN (actor, 314 points)

Maybe Australia (the movie, not the country) soured photographers' favourite Hugh on coming home. He's spent recent years hosting the Oscars (and rappelling in to help Oprah) and on US fodder such as Real Steel. Next up: Les Miserables and that Wolverine sequel.
Year ahead: steady

13 NICOLE KIDMAN (actor, 284 points)

What the god of movies giveth, he taketh away: Kidman earned big box-office for the woeful Adam Sandler comedy Just Go With It but copped a Razzie nomination. Rabbit Hole's Oscar nomination soothed the pain of another Razzie nom (worst screen couple, alongside Nicolas Cage in Trespass) and iffy box-office for Nine.
Year ahead: steady

14 ABBIE CORNISH (actor, 283 points)

Bright Star earned her raves, that relationship with Ryan Phillippe got her into the mags. Reviled Sucker Punch and Madonna's tepidly received W.E. couldn't dim the lustre of Limitless's worldwide take.
Year ahead: steady

15 JAMES WAN (director-producer) 258 points)

Wan and long-time collaborator Leigh Whannell's Saw movies were (dis)credited with starting the recent glut of torture-porn flicks. Wan clawed back some creative respect with Insidious. The world waits to judge Wan's next, The Conjuring.
Year ahead: down

16 LEIGH WHANNELL (actor-writer 256 points)

Yes, it's true. Thanks to the combination of co-executive producing the Saw franchise, and scripting and acting in housebound horror hit Insidious (starring Rose Byrne), the 35-year-old vaults past better-known peers.
Year ahead: down

17 TERESA PALMER (actor, 239 points)

Solid global box-office for I am Number Four was backed up by a great turn in local flick Wish You Were Here. Now to prove she's not just another pretty blonde …
Year ahead: steady

18 GEORGE MILLER (writer-director, 186 points)

The Happy Feet Two maestro also produced via his renowned company Kennedy Miller Mitchell and both it (and he) stays firmly based in Sydney. If that Mad Max sequel, with The Dark Knight Rises star Tom Hardy, finally unreels …
Year ahead: up

19 NAOMI WATTS (actor, 161 points)

The only name to earn an unequivocal ''hot'' from the photo agencies (especially for pics with husband Liev Schreiber and kids), Watts enjoyed steady returns (and great leading men) with J. Edgar and Fair Game.
Year ahead: up

20 JOEL EDGERTON (actor, 139 points)

The hard-working drama star has had a dream run, with local hits Animal Kingdom and Wish You Were Here, and Hollywood outings Warrior and The Thing. His The Odd Life of Timothy Green just opened to $50 million in the US. Next up: Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby adaptation.
Year ahead: up

THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY …

Baz Luhrmann has been quiet, preparing to unleash The Great Gatsby - so expect him to figure in this list again soon. Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver and Hanna star Eric Bana got pipped at the post, as did up-and-comer Bojana Novakovic (Devil and Burning Man) and Rango voice-star Isla Fisher. And after a few bad years (box-office and press-wise), Mel Gibson scored less than also-rans such as Sanctum's Richard Roxburgh.

HOW WE RATED THEM

We collated our master list of films made and/or released January 2010 to October 2012 from the Screen Australia, Box Office Mojo, Urban Cinefile and IMDb databases, cross-referencing releases with Empire and FilmInk magazines.

For the films' producer(s), director, writer, and five top-billed actors (and we began with a list of 422 names), we awarded two points each per $1 million earned at the Australian box office; one point for each $1 million earned elsewhere in the world (global box office was the telling factor); plus points were also given for major award wins (including Oscars, BAFTAs, AACTAs), major festival appearance and/or prizes (including the Sydney, Cannes, Berlin, Sundance, Venice and Toronto festivals), and magazine covers (sampled 2011-2012 from Who, New Weekly, Empire, FilmInk and so on). Voice animation work also counted.

We asked Sydney photo agencies, including Jamie Fawcett's PhotoNews, to rate our top 40 (hello, Naomi Watts). We awarded bonus points to internationally known ''names'' who returned home (good on you, Guy Pearce) and deducted points for Golden Raspberry Award mentions (sorry, Nicole).

Why Mia Wasikowska is a secret star

Talented: Actress Mia Wasikowska. Picture: AP Source: AP

Megan Lehman, The Sunday Telegraph, reports

Soft-spoken and private, the gorgeously gamine Mia Wasikowska has largely flown under the radar at home while quietly taking over Hollywood.

And under that delicate exterior lies a somewhat mutinous soul.

Wasikowska admits she's drawn to rebellious characters and her latest role, as a preacher's daughter in John Hillcoat's Lawless, is no exception.

"It's not necessarily a conscious decision," she says. "But then, looking back at it, I guess there's a through-line where my characters are often at odds with their time and the expectations that are upon them and I find that really interesting."

From whimsical fairytale heroine to worldly LA teenager, Wasikowska's roles have shown an actress keen to explore the many facets of human nature.

And after a star-making turn anchoring Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland and critical acclaim in films such as Jane Eyre and The Kids Are All Right, the 22-year-old Canberra-born actress is fast gaining on her idol Cate Blanchett as one of the country's most sought-after stars.

Time magazine named her one of their 100 Most Influential People and she has won praise from Meryl Streep and her Albert Nobbs co-star Glenn Close.

In Lawless, we first meet Wasikowska's bonnet-clad Bertha Minnix petting a timid fawn and being properly pious and dutiful. But soon she's flirting with danger in the form of moonshiner Shia LaBeouf.

"(I'm interested in) the struggle all these characters have between how they're perceived and how they perceive themselves," she says.

The middle child of two visual artists, Wasikowska has a keen interest in photography and prefers an unfussy style when it comes to fashion, although she's currently starring in a Marie Antoinette-inspired campaign as the new face of designer Miu Miu.

She is rarely photographed out and about and her love life remains oddly unscrutinised, so how does she manage to keep such a low profile?

"I don't think I'm that interesting to (the paparazzi) yet. I never get bothered, I can usually sneak back home really easily. I just hang out with my friends and read books and watch movies, play with my nephew who's 1 1/2 now - all very simple things."

Her presence provides a welcome softer note in the blood-soaked Lawless, with its tommy guns and hooch-swilling outlaws. Based on real-life Prohibition bootleggers, the movie follows the fortunes of the Bondurant brothers, whose thriving backwoods operation draws the attention of crooked city cops.

Australian director Hillcoat's second collaboration with screenwriter-composer Nick Cave (after the Aussie western The Proposition) has a testosterone-heavy cast of A-listers including LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce and Gary Oldman.

Adding another touch of femininity is Jessica Chastain, as Hardy's love interest.

"The female characters in the story were a contrast to the more brutal elements in the movie," Wasikowska says.

She was particularly pleased to have so many Aussies working on the film.

"I continue to bump into Australians on set. Even the one I'm about to start filming (The Double, an upcoming comedy inspired by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novella) - Noah Taylor's on that."

She has also wrapped horror film Stoker, in which she plays Nicole Kidman's daughter, and is to join Cate Blanchett in filming Carol, an adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel.

"I'm really excited to work with (Cate). It still doesn't quite feel real."

- Lawless opens Thursday

Author's journey across desert to leave tracks on big screen

The epic journey of Robyn Davidson, who walked the Australian desert with four camels and a dog, is to be recreated in a film. Photo: Edwina Pickles

Linda Morris, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

After 35 years and a failed attempt by actress Julia Roberts to bring it to the big screen, the story of solo adventuress Robyn Davidson and her nine-month trek across Australia's central desert is to be made into a film.

The ethereal Mia Wasikowska will play the intrepid Davidson, while Adam Driver, of the HBO series Girls, will take on the role of Rick Smolan, the brash former National Geographic photographer who documented Davidson's trek, in a $12 million production that will begin filming on October 8 in South Australia and the Northern Territory.

In 1977 Davidson, with four camels and her dog, Diggity, set out to cross Australia's heartland for no better reason than she had wanted to find herself. She was mystified when her personal odyssey became the stuff of international headlines. Incorrectly reported as missing, she was pursued by paparazzi and had to shoot her beloved Diggity when the dog took poison bait.

Tracks is being produced by Emile Sherman and Iain Canning of See-Saw Films, whose credits include The King's Speech, Shame, and Oranges and Sunshine. It is being co-produced by Julie Ryan, maker of Red Dog and Ten Canoes. The film is to be directed by John Curran, from The Painted Veil and Praise, who also wrote the screenplay with Marion Nelson.

Davidson's journey was one of the great Australian stories that begged to be adapted for the big screen, Sherman says.

''Robyn, played by Mia Wasikowska, undertakes such an epic journey, doing what I suspect many of us wish we had the courage to do: to cast off the shackles of our lives, going as far away as possible from the noise of civilisation, and to find out how we would manage truly alone.

''At the same time, it's her unique relationship with her camel companions and her dog, Diggity, that gives the story such warmth and intimacy.

''And of course there is her more complicated relationship with the charismatic National Geographic photographer … whose ongoing intrusions she's forced to accommodate.''

The character of Davidson first drew Roberts, then Helen Hunt to the role. Disney bought the film rights in 1994. Tracks, Davidson's account of her solo venture, was an international bestseller and has been re-released by Bloomsbury for the start of the film's production.

Davidson, who is based in Melbourne and has struggled with public representations of herself as a romantic figure of the desert, is pleased with the casting of Wasikowska. The film will not exactly mirror her journey, but memory is a contentious thing.

''You have all these triggers in the book that allow other people to imagine and, indeed, allow me to imagine the trip, which is probably different from actually how it was,'' she says. ''People will think the film will be a representation of what happened and, of course, it's much further removeIt's a funny, strange, slippery thing - memory - and you have to make your identity up in the middle of it all.''

Australian films prepare to storm Cannes Film Festival 2012

Source: The Sunday Telegraph

The Sunday Telegraph reports

Australia will storm the Cannes Film Festival with both barrels blazing this week and, yes, there will be blood.

A bootlegging western, a hard-boiled gangster story and an explosive Southern noir tale will see a posse of Aussies swagger onto the Croisette, gunning for accolades and attention in a festival pegged to be the most violent yet.

You want names?

Nicole Kidman vamps it up as a bleached blonde floozy in The Paperboy, Kylie Minogue turns auteur's muse in the eccentric French indie Holy Motors, Mia Wasikowska dons a bonnet to play an Amish lass alongside Guy Pearce's sadistic sheriff in Lawless, while the criminally underrated Ben Mendelsohn gets a chance to shine opposite Brad Pitt's mob enforcer in Killing Them Softly.

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.

Style is back but sexy takes a seat

2012 Samsung AACTA Awards Ceremony at Sydney Opera House. Red Carpet. Cate Blanchett. Picture: Adam Ward

Damien Woolnough, The Australian, reports

AT local awards shows the only certainty is that fashion will be the biggest loser. From the Brownlows to the Logies, our national sense of style has suffered but glimpses of glamour and hope emerged on the red carpet at the Sydney Opera House for last night's inaugural AACTA awards.

With the arrival of Cate Blanchett looking like a style gladiatrix in gold Alexander McQueen, memories of Melbourne celebrity Brynne Edelsten in dresses fit for the Playboy mansion or broadcaster Susie Elelman's dangerous decolletage at the Logies were finally erased.

Most actresses could be forgiven for skipping the red carpet at the sight of Blanchett glistening in the distance but a new breed of starlets rose to the challenge.

Most took safety in basic black, with Radha Mitchell wearing a Grecian-style dress with knotted straps by Bianca Spender, and Elizabeth Debicki from the upcoming The Great Gatsby making a black Collette Dinnigan dress with a pineapple motif the unexpected height of chic.

Red Dog actress Rachael Taylor passed on a Gucci dress to wear black Dion Lee with sheer panels, causing double takes in the photographers' pit. Following a similarly sexy path was Megan Gale who fought for breath in a black lace dress with a plunging neckline by Alex Perry.

Most guests bypassed sexiness and goddess gowns for dresses they could sit down in. Claudia Karvan made green animal print by Dolce & Gabbana look elegant and comfortable, with a practical below-the-knee hemline, and Jane Eyre actress Mia Wasikowska looked at ease in a baby-doll blush dress by Miu Miu.

"The overall standard of the Australian red carpet has improved," says celebrity stylist Kelly Smythe, who dressed model Samantha Harris in floor-length black Alex Perry. "People now have greater access to international designers and they're more willing to seek out stylists for help."

Department store David Jones sponsored the event and helped actresses avoid the aesthetic pitfalls that can lead to worst-dressed lists. They also provided ambassador Miranda Kerr in bronze Collette Dinnigan, to lift the style standard in an emergency but it was unnecessary - Blanchett had already scored gold.

Mia Wasikowska makes Vanity Fair cover

Vanity Fair cover featuring Rooney Mara (left), Mia Wasikowska (front), Jennifer Lawrence (back) and Jessica Chastain (right). Source: Supplied

The Herald Sun reports

Australian actress Mia Wasikowska is touted as one of Hollywood's new leading ladies on the cover of Vanity Fair.

Wasikowska is among a cast of 11 women to make the cover of the upcoming edition of the magazine.

Canberra-born Wasikowska, 22, has found global acclaim for her role opposite Michael Fassbender in the 2011 film Jane Eyre, as well as US cable television network HBO's series, In Treatment.

Dressed in a shimmering green evening gown, her short blonde hair swept back, Wasikowska is on the cover of the magazine's March issue, surrounded by other starlets including Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: First Class), and best supporting actress Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life).

All 11 women are dressed as 1920s sirens for the art deco-style photo shoot by photographer Mario Testino, Britain's Evening Standard newspaper reported.

While Alice In Wonderland star Wasikowska missed out on an Oscar nomination for her role in Jane Eyre, she attracted the praise of big name Hollywood actress, Meryl Streep.

After winning a Golden Globe in mid-January, Streep used her acceptance speech to remind the world about Wasikowska's performance as Jane Eyre in the new adaptation of the classic Charlotte Bronte novel.

Kelpie fetches the top prize at new film and TV awards

Olivia Newton John. Photo: Ben Rushton

Garry Maddox, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

IT WAS one more triumphant yelp for Red Dog. The warm-hearted hit film won the top prize at the first Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards at the Opera House last night.

The comic drama by the director Kriv Stenders about a kelpie who unites a mining town in the Pilbara, loosely based on a true story from the 1970s, added best film to the previously announced member's choice award.

But with Red Dog's directing, acting and craft nominees all overlooked, the intense drama Snowtown surprisingly won four of the stylish trophies modelled on the Southern Cross at the replacement for the Australian Film Institute Awards.

Presenters at the black-tie ceremony included the Australian of the Year and academy president Geoffrey Rush, Cate Blanchett, Mia Wasikowska, Anthony LaPaglia and Jacki Weaver, with performances by Olivia Newton-John and Megan Washington.

Justin Kurzel's dark Snowtown, which dramatised South Australia's infamous bodies-in-the-barrels murders using mostly non-actors from the Adelaide suburbs where the early crimes took place, won best direction, best actor for little-known Daniel Henshall, best adapted screenplay for Shaun Grant and, in the night's biggest upset, best supporting actress for first-timer Louise Harris.

Henshall took the role of serial killer John Bunting to break away from being cast as an ''affable loser'' in TV shows and commercials. He beat three big names - Geoffrey Rush for The Eye of the Storm, Willem Dafoe for The Hunter and David Wenham for Oranges and Sunshine.

Kurzel cast Harris, a non-actor, as the mother of teenage killer Jamie Vlassakis after seeing her arguing in the street about a dog off the chain.

She was considered a long-shot against Helen Morse and Alexandra Schepisi (both for The Eye of the Storm) and young Morgana Davies (The Hunter).

At the earlier craft awards, Snowtown also won won best editing and sound.

The six-time AFI winner Judy Davis won best actress for playing a fragile expat who returns to see her dying mother in The Eye of the Storm, Fred Schepisi's adaptation of a Patrick White novel.

Hugo Weaving, a three-time AFI winner, won best supporting actor for playing a former ''lost child'' shipped to Australia in the drama Oranges and Sunshine.

The Tasmanian wilderness drama The Hunter led the nominations with 14 but won just two - best cinematography and music score - at the craft awards.

In the TV categories, the drama The Slap won five prizes and the Tim Winton adaptation Cloudstreet had eight nominations but won only best young actor for Lara Robinson.

Asher Keddie, who memorably played Ita Buttrose in the mini-series Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo, collected the audience choice award for best performance in a TV drama.

Packed To The Rafters collected the audience choice award for best TV program.

Australia's top chances for Oscar nominations

Australian actor Mia Wasikowska ... could she score a best actress nod for her performance in Jane Eyre?

The Age reports

If there is a major surprise when the Academy Award nominations are announced early Wednesday morning (AEDT) Australian actress Mia Wasikowska could be the reason.

A few weeks ago the best actress Oscar prospects for the Canberra-born 22-year-old's critically-acclaimed, but quickly forgotten, starring role in Jane Eyre were as healthy as the Costa Concordia cruise ship.

The tide recently turned.

One of Wasikowska's champions, ironically, is the woman most likely to win the best actress Oscar, Meryl Streep.

The US star used a portion of her acceptance speech after winning the Golden Globe last week to remind the world about Wasikowska's performance as Jane Eyre in the new adaptation of the classic Charlotte Bronte novel.

"How about Mia Wasikowska in Jane Eyre?" Streep, a short-priced favourite to win the third Oscar of her career for playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, asked the A-list crowd at the Globes that included many Academy-voting members.

Wasikowska remains at long-shot odds of 100/1 and would have to squeeze out one of the five actresses who appear set to receive nominations: Streep; Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn); Viola Davis (The Help); Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs); and Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin).

Also in the hunt in the best actress category are Charlize Theron (Young Adult), Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Emma Stone (The Help).

Adding to Wasikowska's Oscar campaign are two of America's top film critics, with USA Today's Claudia Puig recently including the actress in an article titled: "Oscar, don't forget these films and their actors, directors".

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times film critic, wrote in his review: "Mia Wasikowska, from Australia, is a relative newcomer who must essentially carry Jane Eyre, and succeeds with restraint, expressing a strong moral compass".

At last year's Oscar ceremony Australia had 10 nominees and a record five wins, but 2012 likely won't be as fruitful.

Wasikowska is Australia's only chance at picking up an acting nominee, contrasting with last year's tally when Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech) and Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom) received invites in the glamour acting categories, and Tom Hooper (director) and producer Emile Sherman (best picture) scored gold statuettes for The King's Speech.

Sherman has a decent chance of receiving another best picture nomination this year with Shame, about a New York sex addict, receiving plenty of buzz, particularly with lead Michael Fassbender expected to nab a best actor nod with George Clooney (The Descendants), Jean Dujardin (The Artist), Brad Pitt (Moneyball) and Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar).

Naomi Watts is given little hope of sneaking into the supporting actress category for her portrayal of a loyal secretary in J. Edgar. Joel Edgerton, compelling as a school teacher forced to return to the mixed martial arts ring to save his family's home from being foreclosed, has also fallen off the Oscar nomination radar.

Happy Feet won the animated feature film Oscar for George Miller in 2007, but last year's sequel, Happy Feet 2, was disappointing at the box office and failed to make the Academy's short-list, which includes Rango, The Adventures of Tintin and Puss in Boots.

Australia's best chances are in the technical categories.

Let's hope Aussie editor Kirk Baxter, who won the Oscar last year for his work on The Social Network, bought the tuxedo he wore to the ceremony rather than renting it.

He will likely need it this year as he is one of the favourites in the editing category for his new film with director David Fincher, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Another potential Australian nominee is the prolific Andy Nelson, a sound mixer on the Steven Spielberg-directed World War I drama, War Horse. Nelson is no stranger to the Academy Awards, winning an Oscar in 1999 for Saving Private Ryan and nominated another 14 times for films including Avatar, Moulin Rouge!, L.A. Confidential, Braveheart and Schindler's List.

Visual effects wizard Ben Snow, who grew up on a goat farm outside of Canberra, has four Oscar nominations over the years (Pearl Harbor, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, Iron Man and Iron Man 2) but is yet to win.

His 2011 film, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, is on the 10-film short-list for the visual effects Oscar.

In other categories, The Artist, The Descendants, The Help, Hugo and Midnight in Paris are expected to be best picture nominees.

Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), Martin Scorsese (Hugo), Alexander Payne (The Descendants), Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris) and Steven Spielberg (War Horse) are expected to fill out the five directing category nominees.

The Oscar nominees will be announced at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences headquarters in Beverly Hills at 5.30am Tuesday Los Angeles time (12.30am Wednesday AEDT).

The winners will be revealed at 84th Annual Academy Awards ceremony held at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre on February 26.


AUSTRALIA'S TOP CHANCES FOR OSCAR NOMINATIONS

GREAT CHANCE

* Kirk Baxter - editing - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

* Andy Nelson - sound mixing - War Horse

* Ben Snow - visual effects - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

GOOD CHANCE

* Emile Sherman - best picture - Shame

LONG SHOTS

* Mia Wasikowska - lead actress - Jane Eyre

* Naomi Watts - supporting actress - J. Edgar

* Joel Edgerton - supporting actor - Warrior

AAP