Samson & Delilah, the low-budget feature film debut from Australian director-writer-cinematographer, Warwick Thornton has stunned the film world by taking out the Camera d’Or (Golden Camera) at the Cannes International Film Festival this week.
The prize – one of the most coveted in film – was awarded by an independent jury to the best first feature film presented in any of the three Cannes selections – Official Selection, Director’s Fortnight or International Critics Week.
French actress Isabelle Adjani awarded the prize to what the jury described as "the best love film we’ve seen for many a year.”
Samson & Delilah screened in Official Selection in “Un Certain Regard” – a category reserved for films that express a personal vision, with an emphasis on special cultural expression and cinematic innovation.
“Thank you for believing in our first born baby,” Thornton said as he accepted the award. “I don’t know what to say. Viva Cannes, viva le cinema.”
The Camera d’Or prize puts Thornton and his film in esteemed company. Previous winners of the Camera d’Or since its creation in 1978 include Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise); Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!); Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know) and Steve McQueen (Hunger).
The prize was last won by an Australian in 1996 when Shirley Barrett won the award with her debut, Love Serenade.
Since its Australian theatrical release on May 7, Samson & Delilah has become a genuine word-of-mouth sensation, growing its audience every week.
The film will continue to expand onto more cinema screens over the coming weeks.
Samson & Delilah tells the love story of two Aboriginal teenagers in a remote community in the Central Australian Desert and features stand-out performances by newcomers Rowan McNamara and Marissa Gibson.
Samson & Delilah was co-produced by CAAMA Productions in association with producer Kath Shelper’s company Scarlett Pictures.
Developed and Financed by the Indigenous Branch of Screen Australia.
Financed by the NSW Film and Television Office, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Adelaide Film Festival and the NT Film Office.
Distributed in Australia by Footprint Films / Transmission Films / Paramount Pictures Australia.
Samson & Delilah is in cinemas now
 

WARM UP AT CANBERRA YOUTH THEATRE THIS WINTER!

The school holidays are fast approaching and Canberra Youth Theatre is getting ready to run two fantastic drama workshops for young people aged 7-12. The workshops are daily from 10am-3pm in our theatre at Gorman House Arts Centre, they will be packed full of fun drama games and exercises and will conclude with a short performance for family and friends.

The first week of the holidays (6-10 July) invites 7-9 year olds to dig up their magnifying glasses and join SPYS R US as they become super sleuths solving a quirky mystery… whilst YIKES! will run in the second week (13-17 July) and is perfect for 10-12 year olds who want to create a story chock full of spooky exclamations as they explore the use of sound effects in performance – Crash! Bang! Rattle! YIKES!

Places in workshops are limited so avoid disappointment and enrol today!
Sibling/Friend discount available!

Enrol now by contacting CYT on 6248 5057
Or email [email protected]
www.cytc.net

Business Manager, Canberra Youth Theatre
Salary: $55,000 – $60,000 plus superannuation

Canberra Youth Theatre (CYT) is seeking an outstanding candidate for the position of Business Manager.
 
Canberra Youth Theatre (CYT) was established in 1972 and is a nationally recognised youth arts company which creates and promotes theatre with young people ages 7-25 that is inspirational, enriching, empowering and innovative. CYT is a not for profit company with three fulltime staff members (Artistic Director, Business Manager & Workshop Coordinator). Canberra Youth Theatre is supported by its members, the ACT Government through artsACT and the ACT Health Promotions Grant Program, and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

The Business Manager must have demonstrable:
– high level financial, budget and project management experience
– high level computer skills with proven efficiency with databases, Word, Excel and MYOB
– ability to work autonomously and cooperatively as a member of a small creative team
– high level written and oral communication skills and proven ability to prepare successful funding submissions
– strong organisational skills, ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure with minimal supervision and a demonstrated ability to prioritise and manage workloads

For further information and a full job description call 02 6248 5057 or email [email protected]

Applications addressing the section criteria and CVs should be sent to:
Artistic Director
Canberra Youth Theatre
Po Box 127
Civic Square
ACT 2608

Closing Date: Friday 12 June 2009

Award-winning Slumdog Millionaire on DVD

By Rama Gaind

Multi award-winning Slumdog Millionaire (Icon Film Distribution) is an exhilerating fairytale about an underprivileged street child who scales the heights of success.
The flawless blend of taut direction, fine acting and magical music lends weight to a popular belief that filmmakers are dream merchants – and through Slumdog Millionaire Danny Boyle is no exception.
This endearing, inspirational film won eight Academy Awards this year: Best Picture, Best Director (Danny Boyle), Best Adapted Screenplay (Simon Beaufoy), Best Film Editing (Chris Dickens), Best Sound Mixing (Resul Pookutty, Ian Tapp and Richard Pryke), Best Cinematography (Anthony Dod Mantle), Best Original Score (A.R. Rahman) and Best Original Song with lyrics for Jai Ho by Gulzar and score by Rahman..
There’s a certain manipulative quality in the realism of Slumdog Millionaire that’s magical.
Seasoned actors Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan star with newcomers Dev Patel, Freida Pinto and Madhur Mittal.
Tugging at the heartstrings, it follows the rags-to-riches story of Jamal Malik (Patel) whose life is akin to a Dickensian journey which sees him correctly answering a series of questions on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
To obnoxious police officers, led by Irrfan Khan, he recounts his life’s journey from rubbish tips, pick pocketing and running scams at the Taj Mahal before he goes on to gain unbelievable riches.
It’s only through flashbacks, which are seamlessly strung together, that the answers come forth to reveal an extraordinary life involving his brother Salim and a melodramatic love story between Jamal and Latika (Pinto).
As demonstrated by the sometimes comical, but mostly heartbreaking scenes of Jamal’s childhood, the authenticity is derived from the incredible, ever-changing, energetic and brilliant colours of Mumbai.
Based on the book Q & A by Indian diplomat and author Vikas Swarup, three different actors play the role of the three main characters as they grow up.
Patel brings a sense of vulnerability to his role, while Pinto’s Latika is a deep, intense character.
Slumdog Millionaire is an ingenious commentary on Indian society intertwined with romance as viewers are plunged into Mumbai’s pulsing, contradictory life. Viewers are thrown into the vividness of the film, where the slums are not static, but a thriving, bustling metropolis and the passion of the actors is picture perfect.
Special features of this DVD include commentaries by Boyle, Beaufoy and producer Christian Coulson about making the movie, together with the journey of the three characters, deleted scenes and scene selection.
 

Staff at Centrelink’s National Support Office in Tuggeranong turned up the volume last Friday with loud shirts, ties and socks to raise money for children with hearing difficulties.

Staff raised over $2100 for The Shepherd Centre to assist children who are deaf or hearing impaired to develop spoken language.

Centrelink’s Aaron Munchow, who lives in Conder, said he organised the ‘Loud Shirt Day’ fundraiser because he wanted to help kids.

“This event was important on a personal level because I’m hearing impaired and I received a lot of assistance from the Victorian arm of the Shepherd Centre when I was younger,” said Aaron.

“The centre helps deaf children across Australia develop their listening, language and speech skills so they can enter mainstream schooling, so it’s a very worthy initiative.

“In more recent years I’ve tried to be a bit of an ambassador for these sort of programs. I want to give something back to the community that helped me.

“It was also great the Shepherd Centre and Australian Hearing were able to help with the event coordination and providing promotional material for us to use on the day.”

Aaron said ‘Loud Shirt Day’ is also an important event for his team, the Diversity Team in the People Strategy Branch at Centrelink.

“We look at ways we can promote a workplace culture where people’s differences are recognised and valued,” he said.

“So if we can help to provide opportunities for kids with hearing difficulties that’s really a huge achievement for us as a team and also for Centrelink.”

Aaron’s team also ran a best-dressed competition on the day with two categories, the ‘loudest’ and the ‘most craziest’ outfits of the day.

Contact: Siobhan Dillon, (02) 6155 2776 or 0403 658 934
 

A woman said she saw her tiny toy poodle crushed in the jaws of a Siberian husky as they walked at Jackadder Lake in Woodlands.
A second dog was jumping at her pet, she said.
“My dog was yelping and yelping and when he was half-dead the husky literally spat him out,” Matti Dickinson said.
But the owner of the husky said the poodle provoked the incident by running towards his two dogs, which were on leads.
Tony Cousins (70) said his eight- year-old husky Tova mouthed the dog and was reprimanding it, as it would with a puppy, for running into its space.
“Unfortunately, it was so small and frail it was injured,” he said. “When Siberian huskies play, they grab each other by the neck and shake.” He said he called police after Ms Dickinson phoned him and turned up at his house.
“She was pounding on the door,” he said. “It is something that has shaken us very much.” Ms Dickinson said she looked him up in the phone book and called to tell him her dog was dead.
“I asked him, ‘what if it had been a child?'” she said.
Ms Dickinson (45), who owns a manufac- turing company, said she was walking her dog Pucci, a toy poodle hauhau, at Jackadder Lake at about 5pm on Wednesday last week.
She had left her two daughters, aged 11 and 15, at home nearby.
She said police arrived at her house while she was at the vet’s.
She bought Pucci as a puppy two years ago for $1200.
“He was my little boy ,” she said. “He fitted inside my handbag.” Ms Dickinson said after the attack a man drove her and her dog to a vet. ‘crossed with a chi-

Somebody is poisoning Claremont’s birds.
They have been seen snoozing around town in recent weeks – after it is believed they ate poi- son-laced cereal grain intended for the local pigeon population.
Claremont chief executive Arthur Kyron said the council was receiving phone calls from con- cerned residents who saw “doz- ing” birds around the town cen- tre, and they wanted to know if the council had a hand in it.
“It’s not us doing this to the birds,” Mr Kyron said.
“We don’t have an issue with them. “We have in the past had prob- lems with pigeons in the town cen- tre, but we are not involved in any pest-control operations affect- ing pigeons at the moment.” One central Claremont business owner said he had seen several “zonked out” birds in Bay View Terrace in recent weeks, but was unaware of any initiative among businesses in the town cen- tre to kill off the pigeons.
Mr Kyron said Claremont’s manager of environmental health, Elizabeth French, told him the likely cause of the sleepy birds was a pest-control substance called alpha chloralase, an anaes- thetic agent that immobilised pigeons.
A local pest-control operator told the POST alpha chloralase was a narcotic and a registered product.
A bird that consumed alpha chloralase would soon experience a reduction in body tempera- ture and appear to be dozing.
This made it easier for pest con- trollers to pick up the birds and remove them, before euthanising them in a humane way, the pest- control operator said.
Alpha chloralase was applied to pigeon mix – a variety of grain and cereal particularly tasty to the birds – to form a bait.
The bait was usually moni- tored by pest controllers to en- sure no birds other than the tar- geted birds took the bait.
But it seems this may not have happened this time. suspended at a height that meant he simply knelt, placed his head through the noose and pretend- ed to hang.
But in the performance, the noose had been suspended too high, meaning he had to stretch saw the boy was unconscious, and quickly brought him down from the noose.
He called the school nurse who performed CPR, and an ambulance arrived four minutes later.
The boy’s relatives said they attempted suicide.
The school had phoned the boy’s mother and told her he had been winded, the relatives said.
When she arrived at the hospi- tal to pick up her “winded” son, she was shocked to find the true nature The boy was released from hospital on Thursday with a prominent scar from ear to ear – the mark of the noose.
His relatives said he was mak- ing good progress and expected he would make a full recovery.

Australian film Samson & Delilah is a hit at the box office and will also be talked about at the 62nd Cannes International Film Festival this month.
It will screen at the Cannes International Film Festival in Un Certain Regard, which is reserved for films that express a personal vision, with an emphasis on special cultural expression and cinematic innovation.
The festival will run from May 13-24, 2009.
According to the distributors, Samson & Delilah has had the highest per screen average for any Australian film released nationally since Lantana in 2001.
Samson muscled up $199,163 on just 12 screens for an enormous screen average of $17,170.
The result is even more impressive given it does not include any Thursday figures for Sydney cinemas, as the film opened one day later in that city than the rest of the country.
In response to the news of the weekend box office results, Warwick Thornton said: “This is very, very cool – we’re all so buzzing. It is a great feeling to know that as I fly off to France, the Australian public is looking after our baby Samson & Delilah”. Cinemas right across the country reported sold out sessions over the weekend.
“I can’t tell you how great it is to see queues like this for an Australian film,” Natalie Miller said from the Nova cinema in Melbourne.
“Nova Carlton is so proud that an outstanding film has been so well received by our audience. You can just feel the sense of excitement from the audiences who are seeing the film – that wow, this is an incredible film and it’s an Australian film. It’s really captured the imagination of film-goers.”
The box office news this week caps off an extraordinary week for Samson & Delilah following its Sydney Premiere last Thursday as opening night film of the Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival at the Sydney Opera House, where it received a standing ovation.
Director-writer-cinematographer Warwick Thornton, producer Kath Shelper, and the film’s two 15-year-old leads, Rowan McNamara (Samson) and Marissa Gibson (Delilah) have flown to Cannes for the festival.
Samson & Delilah tells the love story of two Aboriginal teenagers in a remote community in the Central Australian Desert.
First-rate filmmaking tells a largely untold story that’s soaked in history and simply transcribed. 
Director and screenwriter of Samson & Delilah is Warwick Thornton. The cast includes Rowan McNamara, Marissa Gibson, Mitjili Napanangka Gibson, Scott Thornton, Matthew Gibson, Steven Brown, Gregwyn Gibson and Noreen Robertson Nampijinpa.
 

Mary and Max: astonishing accomplishment

By Rama Gaind

PRAISE continues for the Australian feature ‘Mary and Max’ as the film is selected in competition for France’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival from June 8-13, 2009.
Mary and Max is one of only nine feature films selected for the prestigious festival, known as “the Cannes of Animation”.
Producer Melanie Coombs and writer/director/designer Adam Elliot will travel to France for the screening. In addition, Elliot has been invited to join the Short Film Jury for the Festival.
Mary and Max was the first Australian film ever to open the Sundance Film Festival, was awarded a Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, and now in national release through Icon Film Distribution, it is the highest-grossing Australian film this year. 

REVIEW
Adam Elliot employs an uncharacteristic form of animation (remember Oscar-winning Harvey Krumpet) to tell a compelling narrative.
The convincing and expressively fascinating story is told using plasticine figurines.
It’s the semi-autobiographical friendship between two unlikely pen pals: lonely eight-year-old Mary in Melbourne and a secluded older New Yorker.
Their friendship straddles two continents, runs over two decades and survives many ups and downs that life throws their way.
Among the stars are the voices of Toni Collette, Philip S. Hoffman, Eric Bana and Barry Humphries.
Mary and Max is an astonishing accomplishment, humble and unpretentious in some respects and daring and bold in others.

BACKGROUND
In 2003 ‘Harvie Krumpet’ was awarded three prizes at Annecy. These awards ensured that the film was eligible for the Academy Awards, resulting in Adam Elliot and Melanie Coombs winning the Best Short Animation Oscar!
Annecy also selected Harvie Krumpet in their top 100 animated films of all time. According to Melanie, "France has a grand tradition and long love affair with Adam’s short films, and so we are thrilled to be selected for this prestigeous festival”.
Adam says, " For some odd the reason my humour tickles the fancy of the French and so I’m looking forward to showing them Mary and Max, who they’ve been longing to meet”.
Gaumont has acquired the rights to Mary and Max for the French-language territories and while there for the Festival, Adam and Melanie commence the French leg of their world-wide publicity tour in advance of the release in France.

INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL
Annecy has been showcasing the very best in animation for over 45 years, making it the industry’s leading international competitive festival. The competition is open to the following five film categories, each using different animation techniques:- feature films,- short films,- commissioned and TV films,- graduation films
The capacity to present and promote animation in all its different forms has made Annecy a world-wide point of reference for the animation industry.