Into the Shadows / Back into the light
Everybody has an opinion about why independent cinemas are disappearing and most Australians films fail with mainstream audiences, but until today, nobody had made a documentary about it. Paul Hayes spoke with the one man who did, Andrew Scarano.
This has been a banner year for high quality Australian cinema, with one of the most impressive slates of local films in years. What would be even more impressive is if more people had seen them. It’s true that Mao’s Last Dancer has been huge, totalling $10.8 million at press time, while two titles (Charlie & Boots and Samson & Delilah) have crossed the $3 million mark and five others (My Year Without Sex, Disgrace, Balibo, Mary & Max and Beautiful Kate) have earned more than $1 million each. But their share of the local box office remains far from the 10 percent that Screen Australia considers a ‘healthy’ percentage.
Why are the punters staying away, those masses that often push even minor US releases to box office heights that most Australian films can only dream of?
This is the $64,000 question for the local film industry, one that director Andrew Scarano and producer Phil Hignett tried to answer with their feature documentary Into the Shadows.
