MELBOURNE CHARITY SCREENING TONIGHT....

There is only a handful of tickets left for tonight's charity screening which will be available on the door at Cinema Nova...head down early. The Sydney event last night was terrific!

THE FIGURES ARE IN...GREAT ARTICLE IN THE AUSTRALIAN TODAY

If small is beautiful, it shows


REEL TIME: Lynden Barber August 29, 2007

MELBOURNE film The Jammed seems the unlikeliest success story.It's a confronting, low-budget movie set against a background of human trafficking and the sex trade. Yet the film, directed by Dee McLachlan, has broken box office records in its first week on a single screen at Melbourne's Nova cinema, leading to its release in cinemas across the country. The impressive film, starring up-and-comers Emma Lung, Veronica Sywak and Saskia Burmeister, and inspired by cases drawn from court transcripts, couldn't attract an established commercial distributor but was granted a brief season at the Nova. Now that season has been extended indefinitely, after the film earned $38,000 in its first week and followed it up this weekend with earnings of $32,000, a figure likely to rise to $40,000 for the week: a sign the initial success is no flash in the pan. The film has already opened at three other Melbourne cinemas and will be released in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth tomorrow, and in Canberra next month, while screenings in Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory are being negotiated.
Nova owner Natalie Miller describes the results as extraordinary. But when so many good films, including Australian ones, fall over, to what does this one owe its initial success? Miller isolates four factors: its quality, effective grassroots marketing (mainly street posters), a controversy in the Victorian media over its rejection by distributors and the Melbourne International Film Festival (even though it was selected for the Sydney and Brisbane festivals and won a prize at the latter), and three key rave reviews, two of them from ABC television's At the Movies. Would it have performed so well without the controversy? Miller isn't sure. Reel Time hears the Sydney preview figures at the weekend were not in the same ball park as the Melbourne ones. But it's an impressive start for a film that has no trailer or big stars and initially seemed destined to go straight to DVD.
NOVA'S Miller, meanwhile, is planning an exclusive season for another powerful low-budget local film, Kriv Stenders's Boxing Day, which was funded by the Adelaide Film Festival. Yet another local film without an established distributor but with healthy revenues in limited release is 4, a musical documentary based on Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and directed by Tim Slade. The film, praised glowingly by The Australian's Evan Williams, earned about $15,500 at Sydney's Cremorne Orpheum in its first week. Orpheum general manager Paul Dravet says its popularity exemplifies a trend: audiences are returning to "offbeat, independent, exclusive" films and showing less interest in mainstream Hollywood titles. As 4 doesn't have a distributor, Dravet deals directly with the filmmakers. "That could be an interesting future for us: bypassing the distributor," he says. "That means we take full control of the advertising campaign."
IN its 40th week at Dravet's cinema (and therefore surely by far the longest-running film in Australia) is As It is in Heaven, a Swedish film that was overlooked by distributors but which audiences have clearly taken to their hearts. All of this points to a future that resembles the days when individual cinemas would play a successful title for months on end: a pattern that ended when it became common for films to be released simultaneously at several cinemas in each city and, as a consequence, they burned out relatively quickly. Even the smaller films have generally been expected to do well during their opening weekend instead of being allowed to slowly build an audience via word of mouth.
Someone acutely aware of this is Tony Ayres, writer and director of the local drama The Home Song Stories, starring Joan Chen. In an instance of viral marketing, Ayres and his colleagues emailed a letter to all their friends and contacts ahead of the film's release, urging them to turn out on the first weekend and to forward the message to 10 more people. Reel Time received the email from a non-film industry source, suggesting the message successfully circulated beyond the usual industry crowd. "Cinema exhibitors regard the opening weekend as the most significant time in the film's season," reads the email. "A strong opening weekend will also encourage other cinemas to consider screening The Home Song Stories. Australian films have limited publicity budgets compared to the big American films. We can't afford billboards or TV ads. We are relying on the kindness of friends and colleagues to help us let the public know that our film is screening." One of the film's producers, Michael McMahon, says feedback suggests the campaign seemed to work very well, with some recipients organising groups of people to see the film at the weekend.
THE Home Song Stories is one of nine Australian features that will be screened next month at the Toronto International Film Festival. The others are Gillian Armstrong's Death Defying Acts, starring Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta Jones, Richard Roxburgh's Romulus, My Father, Scott Hicks's documentary about composer Philip Glass, Glass: a Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts, Rolf de Heer's silent comedy Dr Plonk, Peter Duncan's Unfinished Sky, Ben Hackworth's Corroboree, Lawrence Johnston's doco Night and Peter Carstairs's September (the first film from the Tropfest Feature Program).

INTERESTING ARTICLE IN THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

This article discusses how many Australian movies slip thru the cracks and straight to DVD. This was almost the case with The Jammed, alas it is now coming to cinemas around the country...

JIM SCHEMBRI'S BLOG DISCUSSION ROLLS ON

Discussion, comments and views continue to roll out over at Jim Schembri's blog on The Age website, keep em coming:

http://blogs.theage.com.au/schembri/archives/2007/08/the_jammed_why.html

THE JAMMED TO BE RELEASED NATIONALLY..

The audience response to The Jammed as being simply overwhelming and we are delighted to inform everyone that The Jammed is opening soon at a cinema near you:

New South Wales

PALACE NORTON STREET (Sneak peaks from 24/807) 99 Norton St, Leichhardt. 02 9550 0122http://www.palacecinemas.com.au/
VERONA (Sneak peaks from 24/807) 17 Oxford St, Paddington. 02 9360 6099http://www.palacecinemas.com.au/

PLAZA THEATRE (5/9/07)47 Bold St, Laurieton. 02 6559 8755 http://www.plazatheatre.com.au/
THE REGENT THEATRE (31/8/07) Murwillumbah. 02 6672 8265 http://www.cinemaregent.com/
AVOCA BEACH (30/8/07) Avoca Beach Drive, Avoca Beach. 02 4382 1677 http://www.avocabeachpicturetheatre.com.au/

ACT

DENDY CANBERRA CENTRE (September)Level 2 North Quarter, Canberra Centre. 02 6221 8900 http://www.dendy.com.au/

Victoria

CINEMA NOVA (16/807) Lygon Street, Carlton. 03 9347 5331 http://www.cinemanova.com.au/
PALACE BRIGHTON (30/8/07) 294 Bay St, Brighton. 03 9596 3590 http://www.palacecinemas.com.au/
METRO BORONIA (30/8/07)212 - 216 Dorset Rd, Boronia. 03 9762 8744 http://www.metroboronia.com.au/
CAMEO CINEMAS (30/8/07)1628 Burwood Hwy, Belgrave. 03 9754 7844 http://www.cameocinemas.com.au/back to top

Western Australia

CINEMA PARADISO (30/8/07)164 James St, Northbridge. 08 9227 1771 http://www.lunapalace.com.au/

Queensland

DENDY (30/8/07)346 George St, Brisbane. 07 3211 3244 http://www.dendy.com.au/
DENDY PORTSIDE (30/8/07)Portside Wharf, Remora Rd, Hamilton. 07 3137 6000 http://www.dendy.com.au/

More cities & cinemas to be added soon check out http://www.titanview.com/ for updates

PRODUCER ANDREA BUCK TALKS TO WHO WEEKLY MAGAZINE

Pick up a copy of Who it's on newstands

RUSH OVER AND RATE THE JAMMED FOR THE INSIDE FILM AWARDS

The Inside Film Awards are the people's choice awards for Australian films.
The Inside Film Awards celebrates and champions Australian film and creative talent. They facilitate a unique dialogue between Australian filmmakers and their audience, support and promote Australian cinema and invigorate the national screen culture.

With less than three weeks till voting closes head over to : http://www.ifawards.com/Vote/Film_List_BYID.aspx?filmid=413&festivalid=&return=%2fVote%2fFilm_List.aspx%3fact%3dsearch%26searchby%3dfilmname%26keyword%3dTHE%2520JAMMED
and RATE THE JAMMED, Veronica Sywak is nominated for best actress & Adriano Cortese fo best actor.