AFI RED CARPET 2008...

PHOTOS FROM THE AFI AWARDS 2008...

From Left to Right: Emma Lung, Saskia Burmeister, Dee McLachlan, Veronica Sywak, Sun Park

AFI NOMINEES ANNOUNCED IN THE AUSTRALIAN..

Jammed star and AFI Best Actress nominee Veronica Sywak pictured left with fellow nominee Maeve Dermody.

THE JAMMED SCORES SEVEN AFI NOMINATIONS INCLUDING:

THE JAMMED SCORES 7 AFI NOMINATIONS INCLUDING:
L'Oreal Paris AFI Award for Best Film:
DEE MCLACHLAN, ANDREA BUCK & SALLY AYRE SMITH
AFI Award for Best Direction:
DEE MCLACHLAN
Macquarie AFI Award for Best Original Screenplay:
DEE MCLACHLAN
AFI Award for Best Editing:
DEE MCLACHLAN & ANNE CARTER
AFI Award for Best Lead Actress:
EMMA LUNG & VERONICA SYWAK
AFI Award for Best Supporting Actress:
SASKIA BURMEISTER

The 50th anniversary AFI celebration will be held at Melbourne's Princess Theatre on Saturday, December 6.

URBAN CINEFILE: FREE ONLINE FOR AFI VOTING - THE JAMMED

In an imaginative use of the internet, producers of The Jammed have made a high quality digital version of the acclaimed feature film available free online to AFI members to ensure maximum exposure � and hoped-for votes.

To prevent piracy, each copy is watermarked and logged with the AFI membership number of the person who downloads it. At the 2007 IF Awards, The Jammed won Best Film, Best Screenplay and Best Music awards.
When insurance clerk Ashley Hudson (Veronica Sywak) does a favour for friend picking up a traveller at the airport, she also gives a lift to Sunee (Amanda Ma), who has come from China to look for her missing daughter, Rubi (Sun Park). Ashley is reluctantly drawn into the search for Rubi, who has become a victim of a sex trafficking scheme run by a Melbourne gang, and she is working as a prostitute, along with fellow victims Vanya (Saskia Burmesiter) and Crystal (Emma Lung). As Ashley tries to help Sunee and Rubi, she gets entangled in the exploitative world of trafficking and the heartless bureaucracy that tramples on the victims on the way to deporting them. (Inspired by actual events and court transcripts.)

Urban Cinefile: http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=14788&s=News_files

INSIDE FILM - The Jammed offered as free download...

[Tue 09/09/2008 08:30:29]

By Simon de Bruyn

In a landmark move that will surely be copied in years to come, the producers of Australian indie film The Jammed have launched a website to allow AFI voters to download a high quality version of the film for free.

After the Australian Film Institute announced earlier this year it had made several changes to its awards criteria for the feature film category, The Jammed was allowed to join the ranks of eligible films in contention for the 2008 awards.

The film’s producer Andrea Buck said the production team at The Picture Tank partnered with virtual studio Mod Films to make The Jammed available to view at the click of a button. To prevent piracy, each copy is watermarked and logged with the AFI membership number of the person who downloads it.

“The moment we were asked by the AFI to provide details of how members could view The Jammed it felt like a no-brainer. We would like members to have the option to see the film where, when and how best suits them,” she said.

The Jammed was the surprise hit of the 2007 IF Awards, winning the best film, best script and best music awards.

To download the film, AFI members can visit: http://thejammed.modfilms.net

Article courtesy IF:http://if.com.au/news/article/PGXDMNMRTK.html

FREE DOWNLOAD OF THE JAMMED FOR AFI MEMBERS AND NATION WIDE AFI SCREENINGS

CLICK TO ENLARGE

THE JAMMED is once again screening in cinemas around the country as part of the 2008 AFI Award screenings. After the AFI announced earlier this year it had made several changes to its awards criteria for the feature film category The Jammed – which took out Best Film at the 2007 Inside Film awards, is among 25 Australian films in contention for nominations.

So that all AFI members have the opportunity to view The Jammed, THE PICTURE TANK and MOD FILMS have banded together to offer a high quality downloadable version of the film. Mod Films is a virtual studio developing new interactive formats, stories and web information systems for visual storytelling.

As of September 9th, members can visit http://thejammed.modfilms.net and download the film using a unique password. Producer Andrea Buck said, ‘The moment we were asked by the AFI to provide details of how members could view The Jammed it felt like a no-brainer: of course they should have access to watch our film at the click of a button, online. We would like members to have the option to see the film where, when and how best suits them.’

Lead actress, Veronica Sywak— fresh from presenting the film to the UN in New York, will be introducing the film to AFI theatre goers in each capital city.

Additionally, The Jammed is available on DVD to rent or buy from all leading retailers and directly through www.thejammed.com/dvd.

UNCHAIN ST KILDA: CHARITY SCREENING OF THE JAMMED TONIGHT!!

The Jammed
Tuesday 9th Sept 6.30pm
The Palace George Cinemas
135 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda

All proceeds (minimum donation of $10 for entry) will go towards
the St Kilda Triangle legal challenge.

St Kilda's Tuesday Flicks will screen films that are either made by, or contain, St Kilda residents, or are located in St Kilda. Films have been selected to celebrate the enduring contributions to the Australian film industry made by talented and creative people from St Kilda.

9 September 2008

For further information: http://www.unchainstkilda.org/tuesdayflicks.html

VERONICA SYWAK INTERVIEWED BY 3 NEWS NEW ZEALAND...

Full interview with The Jammed actress, Veronica Sywak

The Jammed is a hard-hitting film about sex slavery in Australia. It is a work of fiction, but it tells the very real story of foreign women forced against their will into Australia's sex industry.

Kate Rodger caught up with Veronica Sywack who acts in the film.
Watch the full interview:http://www.3news.co.nz/Home/Video/NZCityVideo/tabid/361/Default.aspx?articleID=65607

THE JAMMED MENTIONED IN THE ECONOMIST...

People-trafficking and people-smuggling
Drawing lines in a dark place

Aug 14th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Coercing hapless human beings into sex or servitude is obviously evil, but defining the problem (let alone solving it) is very hard.


excerpt:
"Despite the grey area, public perception of the two problems often diverges. In Australia, for example, public opinion favours a tough line over people-smuggling—but there has been a surge of sympathy for the victims of trafficking (often brought to Australia from Thailand or Indochina) since the release last year of “The Jammed”, a film set in a Melbourne brothel"


To read the full article:http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11921830

JAMMED BLOG/REVIEW FROM THE NETHERLANDS..

The Jammed takes a close and detailed look at the lives of these girls, and traces the path by which family poverty and debt lead to exploitation and violence. The film is very Australian, but hits the bullseye in its portrayal of people trafficking and as such travels well into the European scene. Trafficking is a global industry and like MacDonalds and Starbucks, it tends to follow pretty much the same rules wherever it shows up.

THE JAMMED GERMAN DVD COVER

To Read More Visit: http://xrds.vox.com/library/posts/page/1/

"THE JAMMED" UNITED NATIONS SCREENING EVENT, NEW YORK, 2/06/2008

JAMMING AT THE UN IN NYC....

Click to enlarge (please note the screening date at United Nations is now June 2nd.)

THE JAMMED GETS A SHOT AT THE AFI AWARDS...

Last year's critically acclaimed independent movie The Jammed will get a shot at AFI Awards glory thanks to changes to the eligibility criteria for Australia's most prestigious film awards.

Director Dee McLachlan's hard-hitting thriller about the exploitation of Asian sex slaves in Australia won critical acclaim when it was released last year and took home the best feature film gong at the Inside Film (IF) awards.
But the film, starring Veronica Sywak, Emma Lung and Saskia Burmeister, was ineligible to enter the AFI Awards because it didn't have a theatrical release at the time entries were due.
The AFI announced it had made several changes to its awards criteria for 2008 that would make it easier for smaller films to enter.
Directly affecting The Jammed is an alteration which will allow films that were released after the cut-off date for the AFI Awards in 2007 to be eligible for the 2008 awards.
McLachlan applauded the new rule and said she would consider entering The Jammed this year.
"For the actors I think I would, yes," McLachlan said when informed of the changes.
"The film will be a whole lot older and there will be all new exciting films to favour, so that's one consideration.
"But you want to give the actors a chance to compete."

The Jammed was championed early on by film critic David Stratton, who called it the year's best Australian film.
Reviewing the year in film in December, Stratton wrote: "Sadly, the Australian Film Institute deemed the best Australian film of the year ineligible for the AFI Awards because of a technicality, which could surely have been overcome with a modicum of goodwill."
McLachlan fought a long, hard battle to get the film funded and released, before the The Jammed found success.
It is now about to be released in New Zealand and the US, and will be shown at a United Nations screening in New York in May.
"It has come a long way, it's quite extraordinary," McLachlan said.
"But The Jammed is not really about the awards - it's got a life of its own."
Other changes made to the awards will further open up the field for small productions.
Until now feature films were only eligible if they had been publicly exhibited for at least a week in a commercial cinema during the release period, in a minimum of three Australian capital cities - including Sydney and Melbourne.
The 2008 awards have been expanded to include feature films made with a budget of less than $1.5 million that have been exhibited in any capital city.
Films that are released on DVD with a minimum distribution of 1,000 copies will also be eligible under the new criteria, and entry fees for short films have been reduced.
AFI board member Alan Finney said the changes were made in response to industry requests.
"In response to industry requests and in recognition of the changing landscape of film distribution, exhibition and production technologies, we are thrilled to have ... expanded the feature film category to include smaller films that have previously not had the opportunity to enter ... which we hope will provide greater accessibility," Finney saidThe Jammed was championed early on by film critic David Stratton, who called it the year's best Australian film.
Reviewing the year in film in December, Stratton wrote: "Sadly, the Australian Film Institute deemed the best Australian film of the year ineligible for the AFI Awards because of a technicality, which could surely have been overcome with a modicum of goodwill."
McLachlan fought a long, hard battle to get the film funded and released, before the The Jammed found success.
It is now about to be released in New Zealand and the US, and will be shown at a United Nations screening in New York in May.
"It has come a long way, it's quite extraordinary," McLachlan said.
"But The Jammed is not really about the awards - it's got a life of its own."
Other changes made to the awards will further open up the field for small productions.
Until now feature films were only eligible if they had been publicly exhibited for at least a week in a commercial cinema during the release period, in a minimum of three Australian capital cities - including Sydney and Melbourne.
The 2008 awards have been expanded to include feature films made with a budget of less than $1.5 million that have been exhibited in any capital city.
Films that are released on DVD with a minimum distribution of 1,000 copies will also be eligible under the new criteria, and entry fees for short films have been reduced.
AFI board member Alan Finney said the changes were made in response to industry requests.
"In response to industry requests and in recognition of the changing landscape of film distribution, exhibition and production technologies, we are thrilled to have ... expanded the feature film category to include smaller films that have previously not had the opportunity to enter ... which we hope will provide greater accessibility," Finney said

Read the full article over at: http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=475448

Writer/Director Dee McLachlan talks to the Agence French Presse...

Crime thriller puts Asian sex slavery on agenda in Australia

by Neil Sands

A hard-hitting thriller about the exploitation of Asian sex slaves in Australia has won critical acclaim and revived the career of its creator, a one-time Disney director who has pursued her own doggedly independent path since undergoing a sex-change operation.
"The Jammed" shines a spotlight on a seedy Melbourne underworld where gangsters force young women, mainly from Southeast Asia, to work in brothels and keep them locked up when not servicing clients.
The film has been hailed by critics as the best Australian thriller for years, with The Age newspaper describing it as "a shock of electricity that restores one's faith in just how good Australian social-realist films can be".
It has also been adopted by welfare groups as a way to focus the attention of politicans in Canberra on the issue of sex slavery and was screened in Vienna last month at a UN conference on human trafficking.
South African-born director Dee McLachlan said she decided to make the confronting film after being shocked at the lack of action against sex slavery in Australia.
"It fascinated me that this stuff was actually going on in Melbourne and everyone was so blase about it," Mclachlan told AFP.
She based her script on transcripts of real court cases but decided to film a thriller, rather than a documentary, because she felt the issue supported a strong narrative.
"The Jammed" tells the story of an Australian woman trying to help a Chinese mother who is desperately searching for a daughter missing in Melbourne's underworld.
McLachlan said she deliberately set out to provoke a reaction from viewers and had succeeded beyond her wildest expectations.
"Some reviewers said it was like a bucket of cold water being thrown over the audience," she said.
McLachlan's interest in the issue was initially sparked by a newspaper story.
"A little article appeared about this guy, a respected businessman, who had held 20-40 Thai girls locked up in a fancy suburb of Melbourne," she told AFP.
"A girl jumped out the window onto a tree and escaped, so they cut down the tree so that no more girls could get out.
"That got the local council involved because it breached planning rules -- it was like the tree was more important than the girls: Break the tree laws and you get into trouble but break human rights and nothing happens.
"This wasn't even on the front page of the newspaper, it was buried at the back," she said.
McLachlan said the businessman was eventually convicted for his role in the sex slave ring but received only a suspended sentence and a 31,000 dollar (28,800 US) fine, even though he made millions from the scheme.
She said she wanted to chronicle the official indifference to sex slaves in "The Jammed," which takes its name from the dilemma facing women who must either work as prostitutes or face almost certain deportation if they complain to authorities.
"There's a great lack of will to sort out the problem and I think a lot of that is actually racist," she said. "It's an attitude from white Australians in authority that 'well, these girls are not important, we can just deport them'."
The women's support group Project Respect estimates more than 1,000 women are being held as sex slaves in Australia at any one time.
It says they are lured from impoverished areas of countries such as Thailand and China with promises of work then told once they arrive that they have a huge debt to pay off and must prostitute themselves.
"The Jammed" marks a radical departure for McLachlan, whose last credit as a director was as Duncan McLachlan in 1997 for "The Second Jungle Book: Mowgli and Baloo".
Her early work on wildlife documentaries in Africa helped her break into Hollywood with animal-related features, although she says the projects she worked on at the time were just a way to earn a living.
"From day one on some of these projects I thought 'I'm on a losing wicket, the script is absolutely horrendous' but you've got to do the best you can," she said.
Then came the sex change and the decision to move to Australia seven years ago to forge a career as a female director with few contacts in the close-knit local film industry.
"I had to launch my career again," she said. "It was a real chore because my previous credits weren't really counted, it didn't count for much."
The director's next project promises to be just as controversial -- a surreal comedy about the US intelligence services' practice of "extraordinary rendition" of terror suspects.
"There's quite a lot of comedy in it, so it's a tough mix," she said. "Again, it doesn't tick the boxes.
"When you explain it to the more traditional companies they don't know what to make of it but 'The Jammed' has given us a foot in the door with audiences."


Images
Australian director Dee McLachlan poses as her newly released film, "The Jammed" a hard-hitting thriller about the exploitation of Asian sex slaves in Australia wins critical acclaim and revives the career of its creator. © 2007 AFP William West

Syndicated:

India times http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Exposed_on_screen_Oz_sex_slavery/articleshow/2924145.cms

Inquirer.net http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/breakingnews/breakingnews/view/20080403-128107/Crime-thriller-puts-Asian-sex-slavery-on-agenda-in-Australia

The Age

http://www.theage.com.au/news/film/crime-thriller-puts-asian-sex-slavery-on-agenda/2008/04/04/1207249447518.html?page=2

Yahoo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080403/ennew_afp/entertainmentaustraliafilmcrimesex_080403033149

The Peninsula

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Rest+of+the+World&month=April2008&file=World_News2008040553624.xml

MSN Singapore

http://news.sg.msn.com/entertainment/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1322657

MSN Indonesia

http://news.id.msn.com/entertainment/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1322713

Macau Daily Times

http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9543&Itemid=35

DVD REVIEWS FOR THE JAMMED ROLL OUT....

Click to Enlarge

INSIDE FILM MAGAZINE REVIEW THE JAMMED DVD...

Click to Enlarge

SUN PARK TALKS LOVE, LIFE, HI -5 AND THE JAMMED

Sun Park chats to The Sunday Times(W.A) Click to enlarge

SUN PARK TALKS ABOUT THE JAMMED AND HI-5 IN NW MAGAZINE THIS WEEK.....

Click to Enlarge

A FRIGHTENING REALITY, ARRESTS MADE OVER ILLEGAL SEX SLAVERY & HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN SYDNEY..

Five charged over Sydney sex slavery

Friday Mar 7 07:46

A group of South Korean women were falsely lured to Australia and forced to work up to 20 hours a day in a Sydney brothel, police say.Federal Police officers raided six inner-Sydney properties on Thursday, arresting three women and two men allegedly linked to a sex trafficking syndicate worth more than $3 million a year."Police will allege the syndicate recruited women in Korea by deceiving them about the conditions under which they would be employed and then organised their entry into Australia under false pretences," the Australian Federal Police said in a statement.A 46-year-old woman from Greenacre in south-west Sydney, a 42-year-old woman from Hornsby in north-western Sydney and 35-year-old Korean woman are due to appear in Central Local Court.

They are charged with offences including people trafficking, deceptively recruiting for sexual services, dealing in the proceeds of crime worth more than $1 million, and arranging a non-genuine marriage.Two Sydney men, aged 23 and 28, have been charged with knowingly conducting a business involving the sexual servitude of others and will appear in court at a later date.

Source: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=253498

ROADSHOW ENTERTAINMENT HOST THE JAMMED DVD SCREENING..

On the eve of The Jammed DVD release(March 4th) Village Roadshow hosted a special retail screening event with Jammed stars Sun Park, Masa Yamaguchi & Veronica Sywak. Some photos from the night below...big thanks to Dean at Roadshow for hosting/organising & photographing the event!


The lovely Miss Sun Park

Sun Park & Roadshow's Dean Gudgeon

Sun Park & Masa Yamaguchi

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD REVIEW THE JAMMED DVD

Jacqui Taffel, reviewer March 3, 2008

One of last year's most accomplished Australian productions

When it first came out, The Jammed seemed destined for DVD release, with only a brief screening in one Melbourne cinema, as the filmmakers couldn't find a distributor willing to give it a proper showing. Fortunately some well-timed, glowing reviews made audiences and industry types sit up and take notice and it ended up screening in cinemas around the country. Hence the DVD release, first scheduled for August last year, has been delayed until now.
A newspaper story inspired writer-director Dee McLachlan to tackle the subject of sex slavery in Australia and her script is based on real transcripts and court cases. Despite a small budget ($600,000) and being shot on high-definition video, The Jammed is artfully filmed, with subtle use of lighting, colour, slow motion and dynamic editing to heighten tension without being intrusive.

For full review: http://www.smh.com.au/news/dvd-reviews/the-jammed/2008/03/03/1204402331193.html

THE JAMMED DVD REVIEWED IN URBAN CINEFILE...

Review by Andrew L. Urban:

Following its successful theatrical release, The Jammed is finally out on DVD. In her new feature, Dee McLachlan gets almost everything right in what is a challenging subject. A slightly bumpy time shift at the beginning is the only distraction to a fine, compelling drama which has something profoundly relevant to say about contemporary Australian society.Clearly motivated by a desire to shed light on the nasty sex traffickers and the insensitive bureaucracy in equal measure, McLachlan steers a careful course not to demonise either of her targets so as to lessen credibility. One example of how she avoids this is the casting of the ever likeable and talented Andrew S. Gilbert as Glassman, the operator of the illegal brothel. His wife (Alison Whyte) is about to open her own art gallery - these are ordinary middle class people. Behind the doors of the brothel lies a business run on snaring unsuspecting girls from Asia or Eastern Europe, taking away their passports and making them work as prostitutes until a super-inflated debt - usually the result of deals made to buy them from poor families and/or the cost of the airfares - is paid off.The performances are outstanding, directed with an understanding that credibility is essential to this fact-based story. Emma Lung makes Crystal a feisty yet vulnerable young woman, and maintains a credible Asian accent. Veronica Sywak, vaguely reminiscent at times of a young Shirley MacLean, completely understands her Ashley, and Saskia Burmeister is a revelation as the Russian girl, Vanya. Sun Park as Rubi and Amanda Ma as her mother Sunee are both superb, underplaying their roles to great dramatic effect.Peter Falk's cinematography is excellent and moody, with an illustrative score that uses female voices for melancholy effect. Indeed, the film's melancholy ending is to be welcomed; audiences for this film are surely adult enough to accept it as valid.

To Read Full review head over to: http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=14027&s=DVD

JAMMED STAR SUN PARK IN SYDNEY'S SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Sun Park talks about her role in The Jammed in Sydney's Sunday Telegraph.

Also big Congratulations to Sun and her fiancee Nathan on getting engaged last week!!!

The Jammed out on DVD in exactly one week!

THE JAMMED NOW AVAILABLE TO BUY ON DVD!!!!!!

The Jammed DVD now available from www.thejammed.com/dvd
(pre orders will be shipped March 5th.)


Home use DVD's:
Individual copies can be purchased, for home use for $29.95, with a Picture Tank suggestion to encourage individuals to purchase one DVD, but share it via home parties/ discussions.


Institutional DVD's : available immediately at www.thejammed.com/dvd

Non For Profit organisations, For Profit organisations, Universities and Schools can now purchase The Jammed DVD with a screening license, that allows the film to be screened to unlimited sized groups, for an unlimited amount of times (available right now to be shipped the following day.)

Please note that the cost of an Institutional DVD is significantly higher than for home use. As much as we would love nothing more than to make this film available at no cost to allow for it to be seen as widely as possible, we are unfortunately constrained by the practical reality that we cannot continue without revenue.

The Picture Tank are committed to make films that impact our world in a positive way, and to raise difficult, confronting Human Rights issues that traditionally do not attract commercial support. There is also a lot of work still to be done in taking The Jammed to the general public in Australia as well as internationally.

WWW.THEJAMMED.COM

BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE JAMMED...

Emma Lung and Sun Park on set

Scene 42: Emma Lung

Masa Yamaguchi, Peter Falk ACS, Dee McLachlan and Rob Hornbuckle about to go for a take.

FILM ON SEX TRADE TAKES CATHOLIC GONG....

The Australian Catholic Film Office (ACFO) has awarded its 2007 Film of the Year to Dee McLachlan’s The Jammed.

Director of the ACFO and jury chair, Jesuit Fr Richard Leonard said 2007 was one of the strongest years in many for Australian films.“The Jammed, The Home Song Stories and Romulus, My Father were among the best,” Fr Leonard said. “The jury felt that The Jammed was a singularly courageous piece of cinema. Even though the extremely violent world this film portrays means many people would not want to see it, that does not allow us to ignore the sex trade in women and children occurring in our nation,” he said.

The movie traces the story of three women brought to Australia under false pretences for sexual exploitation. The Jammed reveals not only the horror of modern human trafficking and slavery but also peels back the complex moral layers involved for everyone, including governments.Fr Leonard said it would be hard to think of a social issue which the whole Church is presently speaking with such clarity.“Pope Benedict’s statement on human trafficking for sex, his message to mark World Day of Migrants and Refugees, and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerants have strenuously called for all Catholics, Christians and people of good will to do everything they can to counter the causes and the evil results of human trafficking."“The Jammed plays the role of raising our consciousness on this issue."This uncompromising and confronting film illuminates a dark, tragic side of Australian society and thus makes a significant contribution to increasing people’s awareness of an under-recognised but important issue of faith and justice.”

AWARDS NEWS IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

Rumblings of acclaim for Noise
Feb 02, 2008
By Garry Maddox for The Sydney Morning Herald:

Filmgoers voted for the sex slavery drama The Jammed. The film industry went for the emotional immigrant tale Romulus, My Father. Now the country's critics have named Noise as last year's best Australian film.

To read the full article head to http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/rumblings-of-acclaim-for-noise/2008/02/01/1201801037814.html

MORE END OF YEAR FILM WRAP UPS, FEATURING THE JAMMED

3D World's Top Films Of 2007
Written by 3D Wednsday, 19 December 2007

ACTOR/DIRECTOR TO WATCH:
ANITA: Dee McLachlan, director of The Jammed. This film is a revelation. The most important film you’ll see this year, viewers will be shocked and sickened by what McLachlan’s investigation of the sex slave trade reveals about Australia. In addition, it has to be noted that the adversity the film has faced to get a distribution is astounding and deplorable. Australian films struggle enough to be made without having distribution and film festival doors shut in their faces. McLachlan must be applauded for her artistic vision and determination.

BEST AUSTRALIAN FILM:
ANITA: The Jammed. It is simply unforgivable not to see this film. By far the best film of 2007, it is astounding to think that its content was considered so potent that it was going straight to DVD.
DENEE: Sorry, I haven’t watch any this year. So instead I will name my favourite documentary, which was Michael Moore’s Sicko, for reminding me why private health insurers are evil.
PHILIPPA: The Jammed is a tour de force of Australian filmmaking. Initially knocked back by distributors for being too dark, it’s been embraced by the viewing public and critically acclaimed. There’s a lesson there somewhere! Truly excellent performances, a compelling story, a flawless script and ace directing makes this a must-see.
DANIEL: The Jammed. The most important, harrowing, film you’ll see this year.

WE LIKE THIS QUOTE: “It is simply unforgivable not to see this film. By far the best film of 2007”

THE JAMMED NOMINATED FOR FOUR FILM CRITICS CIRCLE OF AUSTRALIA AWARDS

The Film Critics Circle of Australia is the national body of professional film critics in Australia. The FCCA recognises outstanding achievement in Australian film through the FCCA Annual Awards.

The Jammed received four nominations:

Best Film - Producers: Sally Ayre-Smith, Andrea Buck, Dee McLachlan

Best Director - Dee McLachlan

Best Script - Dee McLachlan

Best Supporting Actress- Saskia Burmeister

The awards are announced in Sydney February 1st, for more information or tickets head to:

http://www.fcca.com.au/

INTERESTING SCRIPT ARTICLE IN THE AUSTRALIAN MENTIONING THE JAMMED...

Scripts fail to tell the whole story
Lynden Barber January 02, 2008

Thanks to the introduction of a 40 per cent tax offset to producers, many players are confident that production levels will pick up and the industry can dig itself out of the slough of despond with a few overdue international hits.
Actor Hugh Jackman, who is producing Australian films through his company, Seed Productions, summarised the cautiously buoyant mood when he told The Australian: "I would have thought for the next two or three years it's an optimistic time for the industry. Let's pray it's going to be good."
Prayer will not be enough, however. The most common complaint about Australian films is that their scripts are undercooked and need more development money
Talk to some of the top screenwriting experts and it becomes obvious that the problem goes deeper than a mere lack of money for writers to polish their work. In their view the industry suffers from deep-rooted cultural problems that consistently militate against the possibility of compelling scripts emerging at regular intervals.
And they warn that if these problems aren't seriously addressed, then Australia's poor standard of screenwriting is unlikely to improve, no matter how much money is thrown at it, and the audience share for our films will remain frustratingly low.
These critics are not casual bystanders. They're screenwriting professionals who have worked at the highest levels in filmmaking and education. They are exasperated at the amateurism that engulfs so much local screenwriting: not just from would-be filmmakers but frequently from writers whose films go into production and are commercially released.
Joan Sauers has been an adviser at all four SPARK screenwriting workshops held annually by the Australian Film Commission, and taken part in six European workshops. In the late 1970s and early '80s she worked as a reader and script editor for leading US filmmakers Barry Levinson and Francis Ford Coppola. She is about to join the AFC as a project officer.
Former script editor and teacher Duncan Thompson is the artistic director of Aurora (the annual screenwriting workshops held by the NSW Film and Television Office) and is head of the International Film School Sydney, where he is also head of screenwriting.
Billy Marshall Stoneking is a veteran teacher, script editor and story consultant who has held or is planning screenwriting workshops for institutions including the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, IFSS and Sydney Film School. While all three script experts have some differences in emphasis, they display a remarkable unanimity on the seriousness of the creative challenges facing the Australian film industry. The chief problems are:
* A cultural blind spot regarding drama, because the Australian way is to avoid conflict.
* An alarming lack of knowledge about the craft of screenwriting but no willingness to admit this and to learn.
* Widespread ignorance of screen classics, and no understanding of the ways in which these great films work.
* Training is inadequate or, as Thompson puts it, "absolutely crap, atrocious".
In addition, there's a kneejerk anti-Hollywood attitude, in which basic notions of film structure are viewed as a form of US cultural imperialism, leading to the baby (a strong sense of dramatic structure) being thrown out with the bathwater. According to Sauers, "there's sort of this idea that 'it's either Hollywood, or it's what we do' -- and what we do isn't strong enough".
Most Australian professional screenwriters have spent time writing for television soaps Neighbours and Home and Away, where they've learned bad habits. For example: their characters talk about how they're feeling or what they're doing instead of just getting on with it. "I've seen this all the time in Australian cinema, where characters discuss the scene they're in," says Thompson. "I think it's the major flaw in Australian writing."
The myth of originality holds undue sway. The story doesn't have to be original; more crucial is the way the story is told. Stoneking recalls his incredulity at taking part in a workshop in which a feature script, which had already attracted $20,000 in public development money, had as its protagonist a puddle.
"It didn't speak, it didn't have a face, it didn't have any interior monologue or thought process, no arms or legs, and it moved around the floor and it was thoroughly undramatic," he says. "And when I queried the project officer ... the reply was, 'We'd never had one of those before'. It went completely against the idea of what character-based storytelling is about and it had absolutely no dramatic grammar whatsoever."
Characterisation tends to be lacking. The screenwriters don't get deep inside their characters in the way necessary to bring them alive and make them interesting and unpredictable. Lead characters in Australian films, especially the males, tend to be passive. And by the end of the film there's been little character transformation.
Whether in drama or comedy, the action suffers from a lack of motivation. Things happen at the whim of the writer, without showing the relationship between cause and effect. Effective screenplays create problems for characters, that they must strive to overcome.
There's also too little dramatic incident, and the crucial point from which the story takes off, called the inciting incident, often happens so late that viewers are already checking their watches.
Sauers says there's nothing wrong with presenting depressing subject matter if it's presented in an engaging way, citing the Danish film Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself. But Australian films too often make downbeat subject matter depressing to watch. Many Australian films, she adds, suffer from emotional and dramatic monotony that makes them seem like short films stretched thin over 90 minutes.
So who are some of the more recent offenders? Sauers and Stoneking are both critical of Romulus, My Father, adapted by Nick Drake from Raimond Gaita's memoir. Directed by Richard Roxburgh, it won best film at the Australian Film Institute Awards last month.
"It's not a dramatic film," says Stoneking. "There's so much about it that you want to like but it just never quite gets itself started, the energy doesn't really build." Sauers says Matthew Saville's Noise had script problems, and Stoneking calls Lucky Miles "a terrible film" because "it plays up to a lot of the baser instincts of the Australian mentality: that foreigners are buffoons at best".
Sauers approvingly cites a 2004 paper by producer Peter Sainsbury, in which he excoriates the standard of Australian screenwriting and names Japanese Story and Walking on Water as examples of films whose scripts should have been stronger. "They're interesting films, based on interesting premises," she says, "but essentially the characters are reacting to situations that have been thrust upon them."
So are there any local examples to learn from? Thompson says The Black Balloon (to be released in March from first-time writers Elissa Down and Jimmy Jack) is "brilliant". Stoneking says Ten Canoes is "one of the great world movies" and he admires Kenny ("there is a great transformative journey for a character").
Sauers nominates The Jammed, Saw (a US film but written and directed by Australians), Wolf Creek and Muriel's Wedding as films constructed around strong dramatic storytelling principles, including putting their protagonists through hell. It can hardly be coincidence that the above were all popular with audiences and most with critics too.
So what of the future? Mentoring initiatives such as Aurora and SPARK can help. Sauers says we need to spend more time educating producers and more closely mentoring writers throughout the creative process. For Stoneking the hope lies in building creative links with the corporate sector, which is becoming interested in storytelling workshops. But all agree the problem will not be solved by throwing more public money at extra script drafts when the blueprints are dramatically unsound to begin with.

From The Australian: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22995224-16955,00.html

DAVID STRATTON'S CINEMA WRAP UP FOR 2007 IN THE AUSTRALIAN

Fine thrillers stole the show
David Stratton December 26, 2007

BY my count, 255 films were released in Australian cinemas during 2007 and I saw just about all of them.This number doesn't include the Bollywood and Asian films that opened, without previews for the mainstream press, in marginal capital-city theatres. The vast majority of films released were American and the quality, not surprisingly, varied from the dire (Saw IV, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry) to the splendid, 10 of which are listed below.
It was a moderately good year for Australian cinema, even though box-office returns were mostly very disappointing. The high-profile films were flawed in one way or another, and my choice for best Australian film of the year is Dee McLachlan's The Jammed, a beautifully written and acted thriller in which an ordinary young woman discovers the evil underworld of sex slavery is alive and thriving in her city.
McLachlan fought a long, hard battle to fund the film (the leading funding bodies rejected it) and to release it (there was initial reluctance on the part of all the distributors). It was even, mysteriously, rejected by the Melbourne International Film Festival. But after screening at the Sydney and Brisbane festivals it caught the attention of public and critics alike and enjoyed a modest, but encouragingly successful, commercial run.
Sadly, the Australian Film Institute deemed the best Australian film of the year ineligible for the AFI Awards because of a technicality, which could surely have been overcome with a modicum of goodwill. Would it have displaced Romulus, My Father as the winner? Who knows, but no other locally made film of the year succeeded so completely in what it set out to do. McLachlan had to be content with winning the IF Award for best film.

Very Special thanks to David Stratton for finding and supporting The Jammed in 2007, Mr Stratton is in a word, Incredible!

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22970767-15803,00.htmlhttp://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22970767-15803,00.html

AND THE AWARD GOES TO....

Jim Schembri presents the Schembri Film Awards for Cinematic Excellence in 2007.

The I Can Do More Than Open Blockbusters Award goes to:

Will Smith for The Pursuit of Happyness, a touching, personal drama that drew in a sizeable chunk of his fanbase.

■The … And We Thought This Franchise Was Dead Award goes to: Die Hard 4.0 for reviving an action movie franchise that had been comatose for 12 years with a kick-ass, steroid-fed action spectacle that cleared the cynicism from the sinuses.

■The We Wish This Franchise Was Dead Award goes to: the third instalments of Pirates, Ocean's and Shrek. Enough already.

■The Most Realistic Action Hero Award goes to: Matt Damon, doing his best running-and-jumping work in The Bourne Ultimatum.

■The Comic Brilliance Ignored Award goes to: Dr Plonk. Rolf de Heer's masterful monochromatic silent comedy was fast, funny, clever and seen by practically nobody.

■The Best Period Film Award goes to: This is England, for evoking the evil allure of racism in 1980s Britain with such frightening authenticity.

■The Best Straight-friendly Gay Film Award goes to: 300. Something for everybody with abs aplenty amid crowd-pleasing action. Runner Up: I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry. Wake up, Gay Rights lobby. Having Adam Sandler on your side is a good thing, not a bad thing.

■The Come From Behind Award goes to: The Jammed. By far the best Australian film of the year, this compelling, micro-budget drama about the Melbourne sex-slave trade was destined for a straight-to-DVD release before being discovered by audiences who carried it to victory at the IF awards.

And the list goes on.. big shout out to Jim Schembri from The Jammed team, THANK YOU for all of your support!!!Check out his blog here: http://blogs.theage.com.au/schembri/