26 07 2018 - Media release Three Australian films selected for Venice Film Festival
Aisling Franciosi as Clare in The Nightingale / Photo credit Kasia Ladczuk, Nightingale Pictures / Full sized, portrait version of this image available here
The makers of The Babadook have struck gold again, with Jennifer Kent's much anticipated second feature film The Nightingale set to have its World Premiere in competition at the 75th Venice International Film Festival (29 August to 8 September 2018). The film was jointly produced by Kristina Ceyton of Causeway Films and Bruna Papandrea and Steve Hutensky of Made Up Stories.
The feature is joined by two virtual reality (VR) short films also in competition Michael Beets' The Unknown Patient (World Premiere) and Lynette Wallworth's Awavena (International Premiere).
It's been four years since Jennifer Kent astounded audiences with The Babadook, so The Nightingale's selection for Venice marks a triumphant and eagerly anticipated return for this Australian auteur, said Graeme Mason, CEO of Screen Australia. We are thrilled to have been able to support Jennifer's vision from development, to production, now at festival and soon distribution.
Congratulations also to The Nightingale's producers Causeway Films and Made Up Stories who have so carefully and lovingly shepherded this Australian tale to this incredible juncture.
We are also thrilled to see Australia's new-form storytellers being showcased at Venice. The Unknown Patient and Awavena are reminders of the diversity of stories Australians can tell, and the ingenuity our local industry brings to crafting a tale. These selections are an incredible achievement.
It's a dream come true to be premiering The Nightingale at Venice in official competition. I owe a great deal to my exceptional cast and crew, who were wholeheartedly devoted to making this film the very best it could be, said Jennifer Kent. Thanks to all our investors for allowing me to make the film I set out to make. And a huge thanks to Uncle Jim Everett. Without his guidance and support, along with the help we received from many Tasmanian Aboriginal people, this film would quite simply not exist.
The Nightingale producers Kristina Ceyton, Bruna Papandrea and Steve Hutensky added, We're so honoured and excited to be sharing the incredibly talented Jennifer Kent's second feature film with the world at such a prestigious festival.
We're eternally grateful to our committed and hardworking cast and crew, to Tasmanian Aboriginal elder Jim Everett for his guidance, and to our investors Screen Australia, Screen Tasmania and The South Australian Film Corporation, as well as Kojo Productions, and of course Bron Creative, FilmNation and Endeavor Content for entrusting us to tell this very powerful story of our colonial past.
The two VR inclusions both provide the audience with immersive story experiences, with The Unknown Patient retracing the true story of an Australian soldier found wandering in London with no memory of his identity.
Conversely the Australian-US team behind the Awavena have told a world story, centered on allowing the viewer access to the spirit realm as seen by an elder of the Indigenous Amazonian people.
It is gratifying to see eminent film festivals inviting the swiftly developing form of VR into competition, said director Lynette Wallworth. Awavena has an incredibly powerful story at its heart; a crucially relevant narrative of Indigenous cultural revival in the Brazilian Amazon, arising from female empowerment. The Awavena story is essentially being gifted to the world by the Yawanawa people via technologies they perceived could best represent their unique world view. It's been a joy to make and we can't wait for it to be experienced in Venice.
Notably Australia's selection for Venice includes two female directors, plus Awavena has an all-female producing team.
Australian films have proven popular at the Venice International Film Festival in the past, with Warwick Thornton's Sweet Country receiving a rapturous reception last year and taking home the Special Jury Prize. Hacksaw Ridge, Boys in the Trees, Tanna and Hounds of Love are also recent Venice alumni.
The Venice announcements come in the same week that it was revealed Australian feature film Hotel Mumbai will have its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September followed by an Australian Premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival in October.
AUSTRALIAN FILMS AT VENICE 2018 The Nightingale
Causeway Films HQ Pty Ltd and Made Up Stories Pty Ltd
Writer/Director: Jennifer Kent
Producers: Kristina Ceyton, Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky, Jennifer Kent
Australian Distributor: Transmission
US Sales: Endeavor Content
International Sales: FilmNation
Synopsis: Set in 1825, Clare, a young Irish convict woman (Aisling Franciosi), chases a British officer (Sam Claflin) through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. On the way she enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.
Production Credit: The Nightingale is a Causeway Films and Made Up Stories production. Principal production investment from Screen Australia in association with Bron Creative. Financed with support from Screen Tasmania and South Australian Film Corporation.
The Unknown Patient
Unwritten Endings and VRTOV
Writer/Director: Michael Beets
Producers: Bethany Jones & Katy Morrison
Synopsis: In 1916 a man was found wandering the streets of London in an Australian soldier's uniform. He did not know who he was. He was deemed unfit for service, labelled a deserter', and sent to Sydney's Callan Park Mental Asylum
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
26 07 2018 - Media release Three Australian films selected for Venice Film Festival 
