Sydney World Premiere and Film Festivals Announced

Hugh Jackman has just given those at the Australian International Movie Convention on the Gold Coast a sneak preview of Australia. Following the previously unseen footage he then delivered a passionate speech about the film, calling the film “the role of a lifetime” and saying that pulling off such an epic would be “the holy grail, the Mount Everest, of filmmaking”.

The head of 20th Century Fox in Australia, Marcos Oliveira, revealed that Australia will have its world premiere in Sydney in “mid-November” before opening on November 26. “We expect to be the biggest [film] of all time,” he said. The distributor has marketing deals with the likes of Qantas, the Nine and Ten networks, R.M. Williams, News Corporation newspapers and Australian winemakers, raising the stakes for a film which already has huge expectations to fulfil.

Additionally, the first film festival to be announced for Australia is Sweden’s Stockholm Film Festival. The festival runs from November 20-30 and Australia is said to be the festival’s closer. The full program will be announced Oct 22.

sources: stockholm film festival, sydney morning herald

September 3rd, 2008

OK Magazine: A Fantastic, Breathhtaking, Visually Stunning, Romantic Epic

A two page spread on Hugh Jackman in the September 8th edition of Australian OK magazine asks the actor some questions, including one about that steamy love scene.

“The shooting [for Australia] has been the best and most intensive time in my life up ’til now. We’ve been shooting now for almost a year. …Australia is a fantastic, breathhtaking, visually stunning, romantic epic… In short, a film made the way you would normaly never find it today.”

When questioned on the difficulty of an intimate scene filmed between two longstanding, and married, friends, a question we’re certain the actors have not heard the last of, Hugh revealed; “Admittedly, it’s weird. [Laughs] Not that we attempt to get down to business in front of the camera, but you do kiss each other, look deep into one another’s eyes, touch one another… To avoid any emotional miscommunication, Nic and I took a long walk before the shooting began and talked openly and honestly about it…”

September 2nd, 2008