10BA FFC ABC report (c. 1988), the usual angst, the AFIs, cardigan wearers and carpet baggers

#AFIawards #australianfilmindustry #FFC
This short excerpt from an ABC report about the Australian film industry was put together in 1988.
What you get in a short ten minutes is footage from the 1988 AFI awards, which were held on 10th October, with Margaret Whitlam, Bill Collins, Bill Hunter, et al, on view, and writers absent because of an Australian Writers' Guild boycott.
The Navigator, more New Zealand than Australian, took out the best picture award, with producer John Maynard having a word to camera.
Another usual suspect was Chris "Babe" Noonan, then with Australian Screen Directors Association cap on.
As always, industry angst was the main theme, with the notoriously upwardly mobile Kim Williams on hand to introduce the new "film bank", the Film Finance Corporation, of which he was chairman (at time of writing he had become the chairman of the ABC).
David Court, who had wanted to be an alternative to the FFC, is also on view. (Malcolm Olivestone, "film financier", also scores a word or two).
There's a potted illustration of how the FFC was supposed to function, in contradistinction to the 10BA rorting years (defamation laws prevent the naming of the assorted producers who rorted this taxpayer-funded scheme which provided tax breaks on income that started at 150% then reduced to 133% and 120% as the rorting ran wild. They know who they are, but at least with his passing Phillip Emanuel can line up in that hall of fame).
The potted lecture is broken up with footage from the filming of the ABC TV miniseries The Bodysurfers and the filming in Australia of a season of the Mission Impossible TV series, raising the usual spectre of foreign invaders and Australian accents put to the sword.
Phillip Adams, who allegedly invented the Australian film industry revival, and was chairman of the Australian Commission, puts in his tuppence worth.
Ironically there's also footage from Boundaries of the Heart, one of the epic flops of the time, despite the presence of John Hargreaves and Wendy Hughes.
David Pollard, the short lived first CEO of the FFC, is present, but found the politics of the industry, the heat in that kitchen, too much and quickly departed.
Dozens of anxiety-laden reports on the Australian film industry have hit the airwaves over the years. This is just another one, done at the birth of the FFC, now dead, and long ago turned into Screen Australia.
At least at the very end you can see Gerard Kennedy and Bill Zappa doing their Mission Impossible chops, which means they could only have been filming the episode Holograms, with Zappa only ever appearing in the one episode.
www.imdb.com/
title/tt0649383/
Don't expect anything other than a little nostalgia for AFI devotees, and for film bureaucrats. You wouldn't need all your digits to count the number of FFC shows that moved into blue sky out of hundreds of investments.
Anyone wanting newspaper reports on industry politics at the time will find many at the AFR. For example Sheryle Bagwell wrote The Picnic is Over, published 14th December 1990 (paywall)
www.afr.com/po...
the-picnic-is-over-19901214-k46s6
For just one of many 10BA scandals, see Mark Lawson's 29th March 1988 Hemdale Holds Out on Pre-Sale Payments to IFM (paywall)
www.afr.com/co...
hemdale-holds-out-on-pre-sale-
payments-to-ifm-19880329-jl38k
See also such stories as (paywall)
www.afr.com/po...
corporation-will-secure-film-finance
-19890207-k3956
www.afr.com/co...
tax-relief-cut-has-producers-reeling
-in-aisles-19890710-k3hgw
Presenter Maeve O'Meara moved over to SBS to become a foodie celebrity and hit the speaker circuit.
www.celebritys...
speakers/maeve-omeara/
This was back in 2016 on the ABC's RN:
www.abc.net.au...
radionational/archived/
throsby/maeve-omeara/7164692
Maeve O'Meara has presented seven series of Food Safari on SBS TV.
The series has been so popular that it spawned two spinoffs, Italian Food Safari and French Food Safari.
The latest, Food Safari Fire, is a ten-part series which explores styles of cuisine cooked using fire, including BBQ, spit roasting, smoking, wood-fire ovens and tandoors.
Maeve also created and co-presented five series of the acclaimed Food Lover's Guide To Australia with Joanna Saville, winning the coveted Gold Ladle in the World Food Media Awards for Best Food Television Program.
She has co-authored twelve books on food including the SBS Eating Guides to Sydney and Melbourne.
Maeve also runs Gourmet Safaris which offers walking tours of Sydney and Melbourne's 'food villages' and overseas destinations including Turkey, the Greek islands and Vietnam.
She lives in Sydney with her partner, TV producer Toufic Charabati, and her three children.

[@lexx2847]

This is really fascinating. Thanks for uploading!

[@theadministrator3636]

Those were the days, cheers ...