Hollywood hits home as film projects roll in a boom year for Victoria

CAMERAS began to roll this week on the Michelle Payne movie Ride Like a Girl — first out of the gate in what is set to be a huge year for film production in Victoria.

Actor Mia Wasikowska. Picture: WireImage

CAMERAS began to roll this week on the Michelle Payne movie Ride Like a Girl — first out of the gate in what is set to be a huge year for film production in Victoria.

Several high-profile actors are making their directing debuts and big names are headed our way in what seems to be a movie boom for the state after years of watching big productions
go to Queensland, South Australia and even WA.

SULLIVAN STAPLETON LANDS ROLE IN MICHELLE PAYNE MOVIE

RUSSELL CROWE TO STAR IN TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG

These shoots will draw stars including Russell Crowe, Mia Wasikowska, Guy Pearce, Jacki Weaver, Sam Neill and internationals Noomi Rapace and Carice van Houten.

Actor Noomi Rapace. Picture: AFP

“We’re experiencing a screen boom here in Victoria, with a range of fantastic productions in the pipeline that will showcase our state to audiences across the globe,” said Minister for Creative Industries Martin Foley.

“We’re so proud to support these projects — not just because they bring a wealth of screen talent to Melbourne and tell unique Australian stories, but because they create jobs and drive our economy, too.”

Actor Rachel Griffiths is directing Ride Like a Girl, the story of Payne’s journey to being the first woman jockey to win the Melbourne Cup. Teresa Palmer will play the history- making jockey.

Backed by Film Victoria, Racing Victoria and Tabcorp, the production is expected to pour around $14 million into the Victorian economy.

Actor Rachel Griffiths is directing Ride Like a Girl. Picture: Getty Images

Foley and Film Victoria CEO Caroline Pitcher visited the film’s Docklands Studios base to sit in on the first read-through of the script with the cast.

Rod Allen, CEO of Docklands Studios Melbourne, told the Sunday Herald Sun: “Docklands Studios Melbourne will be busy ’til late this year, with our five sound stages booked with a mix of large and small projects.”

Ride Like a Girl will shoot for five days in Payne’s home town of Ballarat.

Producer Richard Keddie confirmed other locations would include Flemington, Caulfield and Moonee Valley racecourses plus Riddells Creek, Sunbury, Hanging Rock, Balnarring and Essendon.

Also now under way is Judy and Punch, the directorial debut of Mirrah Foulkes, star of the ABC TV series Harrow. It is believed to be shooting in multiple regional and coastal locations as well as Montsalvat in Eltham.

Guy Pearce and Carice van Houten. Picture: Twitter/Guy Pearce

Wasikowska is home to star opposite Damon Herriman in the dark art-house flick, which reimagines the old Punch and Judy puppet show as the violent story of a couple seeking to exact revenge on, and escape, their small town.

Pearce is another stepping behind the camera for the first time, with a story he knows intimately: the Victorian starred in the MTC play Poor Boy in 2009 and will now steer the movie adaptation about a boy who, on his seventh birthday, says he is actually a grown man named Danny, who died seven years prior.

Pearce will star alongside his partner, Dutch Game of Thrones star van Houten, plus Frances O’Connor and Richard Roxburgh. Filming will start in August.

Production on Justin Kurzel’s True History of the Kelly Gang had been slated for March, but is on hold.

Russell Crowe plays bushranger mentor Harry Power in Justin Kurzel’s True History of the Ned Kelly Gang. Picture: Getty Images

Based on Peter Carey’s novel, it will star young English actor George MacKay as Ned Kelly and Russell Crowe as his bushranger mentor Harry Power.

Angel of Mine teams Strangerland director Kim Farrant with the Oscar-nominated writer of Lion, Luke Davies, and the
Swedish star of the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films, Noomi Rapace.

Rapace will play a mother who unravels when she becomes convinced that a stranger’s child is her own missing daughter.

Australian star of The Handmaid’s Tale Yvonne Strahovski will play the stranger.

Saw creator Leigh Whannell’s Upgrade shot 12 months ago at Docklands Studios and on location around Collingwood, Pentridge Prison and Spotswood. Backed by US horror hitmakers Blumhouse, the action-packed sci-fi thriller was called “energised, high-voltage hysteria” by SlashFilm. It opens June 14.

Shane and Clayton Jacobson’s follow-up to Kenny, the blackly comic Brothers’ Nest, opens June 21. Filmed in the farming community of Bungal, the tale of siblings planning the perfect murder was compared to the work of the Coen Brothers by The Hollywood Reporter.