Action called on Emilie Lowe’s neo-Western Dead Centre

Production has commenced in Western Australia on Emilie Lowe’s sophomore feature film, Dead Centre. Set in the near future, the neo-Western tells the story of The Hunter (Gabriel Sheehan) who’s tracking an animal terrorising a local homestead.  When he falls foul of an unauthorised poacher gang lead by The Poacher (Paul Walenkamp), he soon discovers that the…

Gary Sweet and Marta Dusseldorp to lead Jye Currie’s powerful new Australian drama Before You Leave

Green Frog Productions today announced that acclaimed Australian screen icons Gary Sweet and Marta Dusseldorp will star in Before You Leave, a powerful new drama from director Jye Currie, whose previous feature The Promise earned widespread critical acclaim.  The film marks Currie’s third feature and is written by Currie alongside Edward Vassie. Production begins October…

Damon Herriman, Will McDonald among CinefestOZ Short Film Awards finalists

Finalists in the 2026 CinefestOZ Short Film Competition were announced today ahead of the Short Film Awards, which will be held Thursday 3 September in Busselton, Western Australia, as part of Australia’s largest destination film festival (28 August to 6 September).  Recognising exceptional storytelling and emerging talent in the short filmmaking sector, 22 films are in the running for awards across seven categories. These finalists were…

Meet the CinefestOZ 2026 Film Prize Jury

Producer Greer Simpkin, one of the creative forces behind the upcoming film adaptation of Prima Facie, starring Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo, will chair the CinefestOZ Film Prize Jury, which will decide the winner of Australia’s richest $100,000 Film Prize at this year’s festival, running 28 August to 6 September in Western Australia’s South West.  Simpkin will be joined on the jury by New Zealand actor and…

Competition: Win a copy of Jellyfish on DVD!

Thanks to our friends at Bounty Entertainment, we’re giving three lucky Cinema Australia readers the chance to win a DVD copy of Giles Chan’s debut feature film, Jellyfish. The film Henry (Aidan Rynne), a slacker floating through young adulthood earning a measly income from selling his body as a human punching bag. Meanwhile he wonders…

Every Australian film screening at Sydney Underground Film Festival

Over the last two decades, the Sydney Underground Film Festival has cemented itself as a force of creativity in Sydney’s arts and culture scene, with programs that continue to promote independent, experimental and provocative filmmaking. Drawn from the highest ever entries, with over 780 films submitted for consideration, this year’s diverse program features films, documentaries,…

Interview: Isaac Elliott

Of the Australian sports feature documentaries released over the past decade, it’s no surprise that such a large number of them have focused on AFL, the biggest sport in the land.  At least nine have centred on the sport, including two documentaries released in the same year about the same person: Adam Goodes (The Australian…

What’s On: Tina Arena to take to the stage in Sydney to celebrate the release of Tina Arena: Unravel Me

Tina Arena will join Mary Coustas on stage at special preview screenings and in conversation events in Sydney on Sunday 23 August, to celebrate the upcoming cinema release of the new documentary Tina Arena: Unravel Me. The highly anticipated film received its World Premiere last night at the Astor Theatre as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival,…

Critically-acclaimed satire The Birthday Trip lands in Perth

After defying expectations in the East, critically-acclaimed indie satire The Birthday Trip lands on the West Coast today, screening exclusively at Luna Leederville.  Despite being snubbed by festivals and distributors, the film was self-released by the filmmakers, and has gone on to out-perform films in its weight class from established distributors, garnering substantial critical acclaim…

Interview: Arlo Dean Cook

If you were around during the late ’90s and early 2000s, and you enjoyed driving around for hours with more people in the car than there were seatbelts, wagging school, partying until dawn every weekend, or taking part in any activity that involved bongs and buckets, dropping tabs, popping pills, or funnelling full bottles of…