Julian Assange's early years to be captured for TV

AUSSIE exports Rachel Griffiths and Anthony LaPaglia will star in a movie about Julian Assange's teenage years.

Julian Assange

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange is to get the film treatment following confirmation yesterday that Aussie exports Rachel Griffiths and Anthony LaPaglia will star in a movie about the political activist's teenage years.

Underground, a made-for-television film by Matchbox Pictures, will be directed by AFI award-winning filmmaker Robert Connolly (Balibo, The Slap). Set in 1980s Melbourne, the film, starring newcomer Alex Williams, will focus on the teenage Assange's forays into computer hacking. Underground, inspired by the 1997 book by Suelette Dreyfus about a community of underground hackers that included Assange, will document his life up to his first arrest. Griffiths (Brothers & Sisters, Six Feet Under) and LaPaglia (Without a Trace, Balibo) head the cast, which will also include Callan McAuliffe (The Great Gatsby, I Am Number Four), Laura Wheelwright (Animal Kingdom), Benedict Samuel (Paper Giants, Home and Away) and comedian Jordan Raskopoulos. A four-week shoot for the film, produced by Helen Bowden and Tony Ayres (executive producer), begins in Melbourne on Monday. The film will be aired on the Ten Network.

MARGARET Pomeranz, one-half of Australian film criticism royalty, has swapped critiquing for curating. The At the Movies co-host (with this newspaper's David Stratton) is curating Contemporary Australia: Women in Film, a program at Brisbane's Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art. The program, which opens on April 21, will run in conjunction with GoMA's Contemporary Australia: Women exhibition. Pomeranz has gathered 50 films, spanning 25 years. Showing alongside lesser known films will be Muriel's Wedding, Toni Collette's famous springboard to stardom; the Kate Woods-directed Looking for Alibrandi, starring Pia Miranda and Greta Scacchi; Rachel Perkins's Radiance; and Sarah Watt's moving Look Both Ways. The films will screen free of charge until July 18 More information at: http://qagoma.qld.gov.au.

TO borrow a Ferrellism, Joel Edgerton is so hot right now. The 37-year-old actor, who last month wrapped up filming on Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, is teaming again with his Blue Tongue Films collaborator David Michod. The Animal Kingdom director has reportedly shunned big offers from Hollywood to make local thriller The Rover. Michod, who conceived the idea with Edgerton, will reportedly write the script for producers David Linde (Lava Bear Films) and Animal Kingdom's Liz Watts (Porchlight Films). The story follows a man on a mission to retrieve his stolen car. Edgerton, whose feature thriller with his brother Nash Edgerton, Wish You Were Here, was a hit at Sundance earlier this year, is busy. He has roles in two films due for release this year: Gatsby and The Odd Life of Timothy Green, directed by Peter Hedges and co-starring Jennifer Garner. He is also due to start filming Zero Dark Thirty, Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow's war thriller.

THE national broadcaster and Screen Australia are calling for submissions to the second instalment of its Opening Shot initiative. Some $400,000 in grants are available as part of Opening Shot 2, which aims to give up-and-coming documentary filmmakers a prime-time portal for their work. ABC TV is hoping to commission six films for a series to air on the digital free-to-air channel. Applicants, who must be under 35, may apply for $80,000 for each half-hour documentary.

A SMORGASBORD of talent descended on Sydney yesterday ahead of a month of big releases. Shine director Scott Hicks and teen swoonheart Zac Efron were promoting The Lucky One, Peter Berg was talking up Battleship, which opens next week, and on the other side of town John Cleese was spruiking his new vehicle Spud, which opens April 19. Cleese stars in Donovan Marsh's new film as "The Guv", a teacher at a boys school in South Africa. If Cleese seems at home in the role, it should comes as no surprise. The Monty Python star was once a schoolteacher, of Latin, no less. (Remember the centurion graffiti scene in The Life of Brian?) Say no more.

Michael Bodey is on leave.