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Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday March 30, 2011
WITH HOME GROWN CINEMAIN GOOD news for Australian film, private investors are coming back. For Red Dog, a drama about a heroic cattle dog from the Pilbara, which is heading to cinemas in August, it's mining and associated companies from the region putting in some cash. For Fred Schepisi's handsome Patrick White adaptation The Eye of the Storm, which stars Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis and Charlotte Rampling and is out in September, it's arts lovers coming to the party. The attraction (as outlined in today's Money section) is the federal government's 40 per cent tax rebate known as the Producer Offset. Another interesting project is being lined up for investors - a film telling the real story behind how Banjo Paterson came to write Waltzing Matilda. It is to be directed by Bruce Beresford, who had a hit recently with Mao's Last Dancer. Fresh from the war drama Beneath Hill 60, the producer Bill Leimbach says Banjo and Matilda will tell the story of how the famous poet went to Queensland during a shearer's strike in 1894 and heard about a young German shearer named Samuel Hoffmeister, who was shot and thrown in a billabong after being accused of burning down a shearing shed. Leimbach promises "a rip-roaring yarn" that would be shot in Queensland next year. "It's probably the closest time we came to revolution in Australia," he says. The filmmakers say Ryan Kwanten is one of the contenders to play Banjo.WITH MADONNA'S LEGAL HEADACHEMADONNA once claimed to be a material girl living in a material world and - given the disasters dogging her charity - perhaps that is how she should have stayed.Eight former employees of her $US15 million girls' academy in Malawi are suing the pop diva for unfair dismissal, Agence France-Presse reports. The former staff at Raising Malawi accused Madonna of sacking them over a changed strategy that had not been properly explained to them, a court official said. The charity collapsed this year after spending $US3.8 million on a project that never came to fruition. The board of directors was ousted and replaced by a caretaker board that included Madonna and her manager. The singer announced in January that she was overhauling plans for the charity, saying the academy "would not serve enough children in a country where 33 per cent of Malawian girls attend secondary school". She said she wanted to "reach thousands, not hundreds, of girls" through education and would expand the charity's mission.WITH COUNCIL COMPLAINTSIt was supposed to be an online forum for big ideas, where Mosman residents could share their thoughts on how to improve the suburb. There are suggestions about planting fruit trees and building cycleways, but one entry has attracted more attention than the rest. "Ban pretentious wankers, ban 4WDS and monster prams," says the most popular entry on the "top ideas page". ("You'd see nothing but tumbleweed rolling in the streets," one wag responded.) Thankfully, there is little chance of a mass exodus in the near future. The council will consider some suggestions, but not that one. "Our preference is that people are thinking strategically about big ideas rather than dwelling on immediate gripes," said Di Lawrence, the council's director of community development.
© 2011 Sydney Morning Herald