New stars take plunge at showcase
HUNDREDS of cinema owners from across the country tonight get their first glimpse of 24 new homegrown films, including The Black Balloon, Toni Collette's latest Australian film and model-turned-actor Gemma Ward's first.
Collette plays a heavily pregnant mother, and Ward her teenage son's girlfriend.
Scenes from the recently finished movie, and others to be released over the next year, will be screened at the Australian International Movie Convention, on Queensland's Gold Coast.
The convention gives cinema owners a taste of coming releases, including high-profile Hollywood films, but one night is devoted to local product.
"I'm going to be telling people to check it out because I think we have something special," said debut director Elissa Down of The Black Balloon, which has love, acceptance and family as its themes.
Down is one of about 50 filmmakers and actors who are at the convention to stir up interest in their upcoming films.
"It throws you around like a washing machine, making you laugh and cry, but ultimately you come out feeling good about yourself," she said.
Down cast Home and Away heartthrob Rhys Wakefield and Luke Ford, who is now in the US filming The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, as the brothers in her story. "Getting the casting right is 90 per cent of a film," she said.
From the australian news website.
Hopefully it might mean we get to see some scenes or previews soon