A new Australian film about gambling addiction in sport – how it can devastate the lives of former star players – has started rolling out in festival screenings.

Heath Davis' Broke has Steve Le Marquand as a rugby league legend, B.K. Kelly, going through a crisis caused by gambling. The solid supporting cast includes Max Cullen, Claire van der Boom, Brendan Cowell, Steve Bastoni and Justin Rosniak.

Davis describes his first feature film as "a redemption tale, a salt of the earth drama with that typical Aussie humour".

"There's a lot of heart to the film," he says. "It doesn't preach on the issue."

Like the cricket comedy Backyard Ashes, Broke will start its run in the country, with a premiere in Gladstone in Queensland where it was shot. After selected previews over summer, it will reach Sydney and Melbourne in the rugby league season next April.

"I had the idea decades ago, growing up around rugby league circles in Western Sydney and seeing and seeing the problem of gambling addiction," Davis says. "Over time it seemed to become more and more topical.

"It wasn't just league players but also league supporters and some of those players that I grew up with as junior players that never really made it to the top grade."

With bookmakers so enmeshed in sponsorship of sporting teams and prominent in television broadcasts, gambling addiction is a social problem that has had some high-profile casualties.

Davis cites the gambling addiction that led to the banning for match fixing then suicide of former NRL player Ryan Tandy last year and the recent dramas for current player Chris Sandow.

"Hopefully we can create a bit of a dialogue and get a bit of an understanding of an issue that's affecting more and more people," he says.

Alien movie dates revealed

Michael Fassbender, who played David in Prometheus, will return in Alien: Covenant.

It looks like Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace are heading for Sydney.

Since it was announced that Ridley Scott's new Alien movie would shoot in Australia, the film industry has been waiting for confirmation that it would be based at Sydney's Fox Studios.

Even with the value of the dollar helping, discussions have been taking place behind the scenes about NSW government financial incentives to top up federal government support for Alien: Covenant.

After their roles in the prequel Prometheus, Fassbender and Rapace are down to star in the next instalment.

And while nothing has been announced yet, crew who are signing up for the sci-fi movie say it is now locked in.

The sixth movie in the Alien franchise will start pre-production before Christmas and shoot in Sydney from April 4 next year.

According to a 20th Century Fox, it will show the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovering what they think is an uncharted paradise but is actually a dangerous world whose sole inhabitant is the synthetic David (Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

Blanchett, Mendelsohn get acting nominations

Cate Blanchett has been nominated for her role in Todd Haynes' period drama Carol.

As she heads towards what seems like another certain Oscar nomination for Carol, Cate Blanchett has picked up a nod as best actress at the Independent Spirit Awards, with Ben Mendelsohn's continued rise in the US being recognised with a best actor nod for Mississippi Grind.

Both Blanchett and co-star Rooney Mara up for best actress for Todd Haynes' 1950s lesbian love story, which has six nominations at an awards that honours modestly budgeted films that have "uniqueness of vision, original and provocative subject matter".

Carol is also up for best feature film against the quirky animation Anomalisa, the African child soldiers drama Beasts of No Nation, child abuse investigation drama Spotlight and Los Angeles comic drama Tangerine.

Showing the diversity of filmmaking, the field includes a film made for Netflix (Beasts of No Nation) and one shot entirely with iPhones (Tangerine).

After an Emmy nomination for the TV series Bloodline, Mendelsohn now has a best actor nod for playing desperate poker player who goes on a road trip with a gambling buddy played by Ryan Reynolds in Mississippi Grind.

Boom in new retro cinema festivals

Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, is one of the best sellers at the Hollywood Retro Film Festival.

Retro has become big business in art-house cinemas.

The success of David Stratton's Great Britain Retro Film Festival in May has sparked a batch of new festivals, starting with Margaret Pomeranz's Hollywood Retro Film Festival, which starts at Sydney's Cremorne Orpheum and Melbourne's Cinema Nova on Thursday.

And according to Orpheum general manager Paul Dravet, there will be five retro festivals at the two cinemas – plus the Nova in Adelaide, Windsor in Perth and Dendy in Canberra – next year.

Even these classic films are available on DVD and online, Dravet says it has become obvious there is still an audience for them on the big screen.

"We're not just talking movie buffs," he says. "The festival scenario certainly engages more attendances to retro. A surprising number of people coming to one session will buy multiple tickets for other films in the season."

After the second instalment of Stratton's festival next year (from May 12 to June 1), there will be the Alfred Hitchcock Retro Festival (March 25 to April 6), a European Retro Film Festival (July 21 to August 3), a Film Noir Retro Festival (September 1-14) and a second Pomeranz Hollywood festival (in November).

Dravet says the best sellers in the next festival so far are Casablanca and a new 4K restoration of Spartacus.

Mitchell and Debicki lead awards presenters



Elizabeth Debicki will present at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards on December 9.

Radha Mitchell, Elizabeth Debicki, Stephen Curry, Miranda Tapsell and Patrick Brammall head the list of presenters at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards on December 9.

With no single host for the fifth AACTA Awards, they will be joined in presenting duties by Courtney Eaton, Stephen Peacocke, Daniel MacPherson, Georgie Parker and Bonnie Sveen. Birds of Tokyo will perform with the ceremony being telecast on the Seven Network.

The first instalment of this year's awards, the industry dinner for craft categories, will be at the Star in Sydney next Monday.

New film roles

TV producer John Edwards is joining the NSW Film and Television Industry Advisory Committee. Photo: Roger Cummins

The independent committee that advises the NSW government on the TV and film industry has two new members.

Deputy premier and arts minister Troy Grant has announced that the NSW Film and Television Industry Advisory Committee will be chaired by Chris Freeland, the national managing partner of legal firm Baker & McKenzie who is also chair of the Sydney Film Festival, from January 1, replacing outgoing chair Helen Wright.

Leading television producer John Edwards will also join the committee.

"Chris and John will complement a wealth of experience already on the committee and will continue to represent industry interests and provide arm's length decision-making on funding," Grant said.

Suffragette conversation

The cast of Suffragette (from left) Anne-Marie Duff, Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter.

The great granddaughter of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst is heading to Australia to speak at a preview of the Carey Mulligan film Suffragette.

Dr Helen Pankhurst, a women's rights activist and senior adviser to CARE International who is also the granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, will speak at an In Conversation session with Mary Crooks, executive director of the Victorian Women's Trust after a screening at Melbourne's Cinema Nova next Tuesday.

Suffragette, which opens on Boxing Day, has Mulligan playing a working-class woman who gets involved in the emerging English suffrage movement.

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