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Adam West returns as Batman; Roxy Jacenko appears on 60 Minutes; and John Cleese's stage adaptation of Fawlty Towers has its world premiere in Sydney.
Another day, another change to Sydney's cinema landscape. First came Palace Cinema's bold plan for 14 new cinemas at Central Park Mall in Broadway. Now comes news that the IMAX Cinema in Darling Harbour is about to close for three years for redevelopment of the site.
After being demolished, a new giant screen cinema will be built with 430 seats and there will also be a 40-seat Gold Class-style cinema that will serve meals from nearby restaurants. It will be part of a new 20-storey development called The Ribbon that includes a 588-room, six-star W hotel, restaurants and shops.
![The IMAX cinema at Darling Harbour is about to be demolished.](/web/20170214014154im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/z/w/r/3/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gqzs83.png/1472070146109.jpg)
IMAX Sydney chief executive Mark Bretherton says the new screen will be "marginally smaller" for engineering reasons but will still be the biggest in the world. The cinema will have fewer seats - down from 520 - but they will be bigger.
"No-one has seats that narrow any more plus they were designed for films that were 45 minutes," Bretherton says. "Now, with feature films, people are sitting there longer."Â
![The Ribbon in Darling Harbour](http://web.archive.org./web/20170214014154im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/0/7/g/y/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1472019816948.png)
Artist's impression of the new 20-storey building that will replace the IMAX Cinema ... The Ribbon in Darling Harbour.
The existing cinema will close on September 25. Since it opened in 1996, it has expanded from IMAX documentaries into Hollywood blockbusters. Bretheron says it has been a profitable operation. In terms of ticket sales, it was the second most successful IMAX theatre globally last year.
And in more Australian film news ...
Down Under feels like 'a victory'
![On set ... Abe Forsythe (second from left) watches a take with actor Justin Rosniak, director of photography Lachlan Milne and stunt co-ordinator Tony Lynch.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170214014154im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/1/3/x/d/7/8/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1466119636962.png)
Down Under director Abe Forsythe (second from left) watches a take with actor Justin Rosniak, director of photography Lachlan Milne and stunt co-ordinator Tony Lynch. Photo: David Dare Parker
Directors are often dismayed â depressed even â when their films struggle at the box office. But Abe Forsythe is surprisingly philosophical after the black comedy Down Under, about racism during the Cronulla riots, has taken just $130,000 on its second weekend. "I feel we had the right film and we were releasing it at exactly the right time in terms of what's going on here and abroad," he says. "For a multitude of reasons Down Under just didn't have some of the key support that it needed. While it's disappointing that it's not going to catch on immediately, we're already seeing an audience that really cares passionately about the movie and what it says." Forsythe believes it would be different if he was disappointed with the film. "But I couldn't be happier with everything we achieved with the movie and how we told that story," he says. "So for me, it feels like a victory considering the subject matter and the tightrope walk the film takes with tone. It could have been a momentous failure. Just to have a movie that I'm proud of is all the success that I need right now." Forsythe heads to the US soon for the film's North American premiere at Fantastic Fest in Texas.
Buzz for two Australian films
As the Venice and Toronto film festivals loom, there is strong buzz for two Australian films having their world premieres that could head all the way to the Oscars. Those who have seen Garth Davis' Lion, a drama drawn from real life about an Indian-Australian man tracking down his long-lost family in India using scraps of information and Google Earth, have raved about its emotional impact and the strong performances by Dev Patel (as Saroo Brierley, pictured) and Nicole Kidman (as his adoptive Australian mother). It is screening in Toronto, which starts on September 4. The same is true for Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge, a drama about a real-life American conscientious objector (Andrew Garfield) who became a war hero by saving 75 lives at the Battle of Okinawa. It is screening at Venice, which starts next week. Hacksaw Ridge is getting an Australian cinema release on November 3 but we will have to wait until January 19 to see Lion. The buzz means both films are lined up for US release in November to qualify for the Hollywood awards season. After six Oscars for Mad Max: Fury Road this year, could Australia have another best picture nominee next year? Or even two?
Skater drama heads for Toronto
Also having its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival is Nicholas Verso's drama Boys in the Trees, which follows two teenage skaters on their last night of high school in 1997. The first feature for a director of short films and electronic press kits for the likes of Molly, Glitch and Nowhere Boys, the Mushroom Pictures film has a young cast headed by Toby Wallace, Gulliver McGrath, Mitzi Ruhlmann and Justin Holborow. Ahead of a cinema release on October 20, its credentials have been boosted by selection for the Discovery section at the Toronto International Film Festival. Also selected for the same section is Sotiris Dounoukos' Joe Cinque's Consolation, based on Helen Garner's book about a controversial murder in Canberra. Starring Maggie Naouri, Jerome Meyer and Gia Carides, it opens in cinemas on October 13. They join Ivan Sen's Goldstone which will screen in the Platform section for artistically ambitious international films, and Mirrah Foulkes' short film Trespass, about a woman who has a strange encounter while walking her dog, which will compete in the Short Cuts section.
Breath nears completion
![Simon Baker, Samson Coulter and Ben Spence in Breath](http://web.archive.org./web/20170214014154im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/2/s/z/h/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1460504645516.png)
Simon Baker, Samson Coulter and Ben Spence in Breath. Photo: Nic Duncan
Another highly anticipated Australian film is nearing completion. After a panel discussion on women in film and television at Hamilton Island Race Week on the weekend, actor-director Simon Baker told this reporter that he was close to finishing the cut for Breath, his debut film based on Tim Winton's bestselling novel. He has shown it to just one person so far, his actress wife Rebecca Rigg, who has given him candid feedback. As well as directing, Baker plays a reclusive surfer named Sando. Newcomers Samson Coulter and Ben Spence play two teenagers who form an unlikely bond with the charismatic Sando and his wife Eva (Elizabeth Debicki) in the 1970s. The film was shot around Denmark in Western Australia.
Tanna contending for Oscars
![Dain and Wawa in Tanna.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170214014154im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/k/7/b/2/b/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1445234700620.png)
Marie Wawa and Mungau Dain in Tanna.
Despite strong entries such as Ten Canoes, Samson and Delilah and The Rocket, Australia has never cracked a nomination for best foreign language film at the Oscars. Now Screen Australia has announced that Tanna, Bentley Dean and Martin Butler's tribal Vanuatu romance, will be the country's official selection this year. It was filmed on a volcanic island in the native language of Nauvhal, with a local cast who had never seen a movie before.
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