Sam Neill and Adrien Brody film in race for CinefestOZ prize

Which five films are in the running for the CinéfestOZ Film Prize, the biggest prize available for an Australian film?

Sam Neill and Adrien Brody in Backtrac k. Picture: Mark Rogers.

Five films are in the running for the $100,000 CinefestOZ Film Prize, the biggest prize available for an Australian film. Two of the films, Backtrack and Now Add Honey, will have their Australian premieres at the festival in Western Australia in August. Michael Petroni’s thriller Backtrack stars Adrien Brody and Sam Neill, while Now Add Honey, the new comedy from The Librarians and Upper Middle Bogan’s Wayne Hope and Robyn Butler, stars Butler as the aunty looking after her film star niece (Lucy Fry) when her mum (Portia de Rossi) is sent to rehab. Other entrants selected from more than 30 entrants are Pawno, Putuparri and the Rainmakers and Simon Stone’s The Daughter, which premiered at the Sydney Film Festival. West Australian box office hit Paper Planes won the prize last year. Paul Ireland’s ensemble drama Pawno, starring John Brumpton, Kerry Armstrong, Mark Coles-Smith and Maeve Dermody,will premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival, as will Nicole Ma’s West Australian documentary Putuparri and the Rainmakers, produced under the MIFF Premiere Fund at CinefestOZ.

The Australian Directors Guild and Screen Australia have confirmed their first “director’s attachment” on an international film: Mel Gibson’s upcoming feature Hacksaw Ridge. The war drama will begin filming in October and Gibson is location scouting. “This is the first time we have been able to offer an attachment on a film of this size,” says ADG executive director Kingston Anderson. It’s a big break for an emerging filmmaker and continues Gibson’s generous encouragement and financial philanthropy in this country, primarily through his endowments to his old school, the National Institute of Dramatic Art.

There is a new film festival somewhere every day but this one caught Reel Time’s eye, primarily because there are a few particularly proficient drone camera people. Seriously. San Francisco has announced the Flying Robot International Film Festival in November for the best short films shot with drone-mounted cameras. Entries are due by October 15 in several categories, including cinematic, student films and drones for good.

Australian features Ruben Guthrie and documentary Women He’s Undressed opened to modest receipts in their debut weekend. Brendan Cowell’s adaptation of his own acclaimed Belvoir St stage play, starring Patrick Brammall, Alex Dimitriades and Abbey Lee, opened with $119,000 on 33 screens, pushing it to $215,000 total box office. Gillian Armstrong’s doco about Australian multi-Academy Award-winning costume designer Orry-Kelly, Women He’s Undressed, earned $55,000 on 19 screens, pushing its total, including previews to $108,000. Meanwhile, in the US, Mad Max: Fury Road is slowing having broken through the $US150 million ($204m) box-office barrier and Josh Lawson’s The Little Death has had a minor release on four screens there, earning $US12,000.

At the top end of the Australian box office, another Marvel film, Ant-Man, opened with $5.3m dollars, which was modest by Marvel’s standards. Magic Mike XXL had legs, with another $2.2m pushing it to $9m, while young adult drama Paper Towns opened with a strong $1.9m. The animated duo Inside Out ($1.5m for $28m) and Minions ($1.45m for $30.6m) continue to fire. And Jurassic World has blown past the $50m mark, adding another million for $51.07m in total, making it the fifth highest box-office hit and now looking to squeeze past the final Harry Potter film into fourth place at $52.6m.

A warning: Simon West’s new film, Stratton, which began filming this week, is not a biopic of The Weekend Australian’s esteemed film critic, although the film starring Dominic Cooper sounds like a past life of his. The adaptation of the Duncan Falconer book follows the adventures of John Stratton, an operative of the special forces of the British Naval Service.

The Italian Film Festival will open with the Italian box-office hit God is Willing (Se Dio Vuole) from director Edoardo Falcone. The festival, screening in all states from September to October, will also feature Venice film festival multi award-winner The Dinner, adapted from the Dutch bestseller by Herman Koch; Francesco Munzi’s mafia drama, Black Souls; Riccardo Milani’s Do You See Me?; and Nanni Moretti’s latest, Mia Madre. The AICE Israeli Film Festival has confirmed its international guests for its fest will include Barak Heymann, director of Aliza and Almost Friends, human rights lawyer Asaf Weitzen and Academy Award-winning producer Howard Rosenman. The festival will open on August 18 in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth.