Screen Australia announces feature development investment

Screen Australia today announced a round of development funding for eight feature films.

Included in the funding is Bruce Beresford’s Banjo & Matilda, as well as films by directors Adam Elliot, Nadia Tess, Eddie Martin and Richard Lowenstein, and investment in writers Alice Addison, Mark Herman and Glenda Hambly.

Banjo & Matilda is the dramatisation of Banjo Paterson’s Waltzing Matilda. Set in 1895, a young city poet and journalist travels to a remote sheep station to track down a political agitator. When the clashes between union shearers and landowners turn to violence, a man is found dead in a billabong. Was it suicide or murder? The film will be produced by Bill Leimbach (Beneath Hill 60) and written by David Roach.

Adam Elliot (Mary & Max) will write and direct Ernee, an animated adventure romance, produced by Peter Kaufmann and executive produced by Brian Rosen and Bryce Menzies.