Only 10% of films have a gender-balanced cast, and getting more women on screens starts with the screenwriters. The solution can be as simple as giving minor characters female names.
Bad female characters start with bad writing. We compare male and female character descriptions, which are often used as the starting point for casting calls.
‘I suppose that, as I’m 50, Molly is absolutely my demographic: I was nine when Countdown began and 23 when it ended, and I was a devotee for most of that time – a devotee who was often disgusted …’
England’s green and pleasant land will be beset by a plague of the living dead, corpses will dig their way out of graves … Jane Austen horror is now a distinctive subgenre of Austen adaptations.
It seems to me no coincidence that in Australian popular culture our founding colony is usually the site of major onscreen attacks. Might this speak of cultural guilt and repressed truths?
Quentin Tarantino has secured his place in popular culture by reaching into neglected corners of cinema for genres that are ready for reinvention and rediscovery.
It was the year of the grown-up superhero. Dark, witty and complex, superheroes on the big and small screen have – mostly – matured past mindless violence.
The kinds of voices that can be used in a show like ABC’s The Divorce are certainly not typical of those one would hear in Madama Butterfly. But – and let’s be honest for a second – does it matter?
Australia’s defining narratives are apparently, with rare exception, stories by, for and about white cis men. We need more than Screen Australia’s new measures to address gender equity in the film industry.
If the Australian screen industry is to grow into the future and prosper, it cannot ignore the untapped creative talent and leadership potential of women. We need strategies to address this problem.
As Benedict Cumberbatch prepares to return to 221B Baker Street for a Sherlock Christmas Special, a great, unsolved mystery remains: what is the source of the detective’s enduring appeal?
The Hunger Games movie franchise has ended. What can we learn from Katniss Everdeen about living a just life? This article contains spoilers for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II.
The future of the worlds largest short film festival hangs in the balance. Can Tropfest survive? And, if not, what’s the loss to Australia’s film industry?
We know the ABC is facing tough times, given the decision last year to cut its budget by A$254 million over five years. But how hard are those cuts falling on locally-produced children’s TV?