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First Nations Spotlight: Queensland Producer and Writer Mitch Stanley
Mitch Stanley, proud Wiradjuri producer and prominent figure in the Australian screen industry, began his career as a line producer for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance-based youth, health and fitness series Move it Mob Style for ABC TV.
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He later founded the independent production company No Coincidence Media (NCM) to create raw and cutting edge factual and scripted projects from First Nations perspectives.
When Australia's Past Haunts Its Present On- and Off-Screen: Shari Sebbens, Meyne Wyatt and Jon Bell Chat 'The Moogai'
Australia should've given rise to The Moogai before 2024, and prior to the SXSW Midnight Shorts Grand Jury Award-winning short of the same name four years earlier as well. An Aussie horror film born out of the Stolen Generations where the monsters of colonisation, White Australia policies and attitudes since remain inescapable, and where Indigenous children today are also snatched away by a literal monster, is a brilliant idea — one that instantly feels as if it needed to have been made decades back.
The Moogai by Jon Bell takes real-life fears for Aboriginal people and turns them into a horror film
Filmmaker Jon Bell says his horror film The Moogai (2024) is a love letter to the Aboriginal women in his family.
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Interweaving the history of the Stolen Generations with Aboriginal lore, The Moogai is about a young Aboriginal couple, Sarah (Shari Sebbens) and Fergus (Meyne Wyatt), who are terrorised by a child-stealing spirit following the birth of their second baby.
Indigenous psychological horror "The Moogai" wins 2024 CinefestOZ Film Prize Award
Indigenous psychological horrror The Moogai has won the 2024 CinefestOZ Film Prize Award, announced at a ceremony on the weekend.
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The film was written and directed by John Bell and stars Shari Sebbens and Meyne Wyatt.
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The Moogai's co producer Alex White joined Wyatt in accepting the prize presented by David Templeman, WA's Minister for Culture and the Arts, at the prestigious Film Prize Celebration in Busselton following selection by a panel of industry experts.
Screen Queensland: recipients named for $3m Business Enterprise fund
Screen Queensland has today announced the seven recipients of the $3 million, three-year Business Enterprise fund.
The local screen businesses will each receive between $100,000 and $150,000 per year to support the sustainable growth of the Queensland screen sector by fostering innovation and building capacity to create Intellectual Property.
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The Moogai: Australian First Nations horror gets release date
The highly anticipated First Nations psychological horror film The Moogai will be released in cinemas in Australia on 31 October 2024, it was announced today.
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The film enjoyed its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and its Australian Premiere at the 2024 Sydney Film Festival, where it won the GIO Audience Award for Best Australian Feature. Last week, it screened at the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival and is a film prize finalist in this month’s 2024 CinefestOZ Film Festival in WA.
18 individuals, 18 business proposals to share $5.2 million of Screen Australia Enterprise funding
Screen Australia has announced that 18 individual opportunities and 18 business proposals will share $5.2 million of Enterprise funding.
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Screen Australia’s First Nations Department has invested $1 million into the program which will support four First Nations Businesses – Djali House, Lone Star Company, No Coincidence Media, and Pandamonium Films – and individual practitioners Travis Akbar, Isaac Cohen Lindsay, and Joshua Yasserie.
Spotlight: Mitch Stanley for NAIDOC Week 2024
For NAIDOC Week, we reached out to chat to No Coincidence Media‘s Mitch Stanley to chat about his experiences in the industry, the 2024 theme of “Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud and Proud” and what advice he would give for up-and-coming First Nations screen practitioners.
‘The Moogai’, ‘Skategoat’ take home SFF Audience Awards
Jon Bell’s horror feature film debut The Moogai has won the Sydney Film Festival Audience Award for Best Australian Narrative Feature, with Van Alpert’s Skategoat taking out the prize for Best Australian Documentary.
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Other winners include Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which was named Best International Feature, and The Home Game, from Icelandic duo Smari Gunn and Logi Sigursveinsson, winner of the Best International Documentary award.
‘The Moogai’, ‘Every Little Thing’ off to Sundance
Writer and director Jon Bell’s debut feature The Moogai and Sally Aitken documentary Every Little Thing make up the Australian contingent bound for the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
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They are two of 82 features from across the world headed for Park City next month, with the in-person festival to run January 18-28, and an online component to start January 25. There were a record 17,435 film submissions from 153 countries or territories for Sundance this year, 4,410 of them features.