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The Moulin Rouge! soundtrack offers a wide variety of needle drops spanning multiple genres. The sheer variety of songs on the album is understood given that almost every Baz Luhrmann movie brims with a lively musical energy. Starring Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman, this jukebox musical revolves around the forbidden love affair between a poet and a cabaret dancer in Paris in 1899. The title alludes to the legendary theater, which sets the stage for song-and-dance numbers visualized on vibrant medleys. Meanwhile, the two central protagonists also get to indulge in their own romantic duets.

What’s notable about the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack is how it blends its period setting with modern songs. Even though Paris was in the nascent stages of industrialization in the year that the movie is set in, the characters perform both original compositions and covers of songs by Nirvana, David Bowie, Madonna, Fatboy Slim, U2, Nat King Cole,...

School is in session for the young cast of Netflix’s Heartbreak High reboot, with production on the eight-part series underway in Sydney.

Ayesha Madon, James Majoos, Chloe Hayden, and Asher Yasbincek lead the new generation of students at Hartley High, with the teen drama set to premiere on the streamer in 2022.

Madon plays Amerie, a student who becomes the school pariah following a discovery that also causes a public rift with her ride-or-die Harper (Yasbincek). With her new friends – outsiders Quinni (Hayden) and Darren (Majoos) – Amerie must repair her reputation, while navigating love, sex, and heartbreak.

The cast is rounded out by Thomas Weatherall, Josh Heuston, Will McDonald, Gemma Chua-Tran, Rachel House, Chika Ikogwe, Sherry-Lee Watson, Bryn Chapman-Parish, and Brodie Townsend.

Creator Hannah Carroll Chapman writes alongside Matthew Whittet, Marieke Hardy, Meyne Wyatt, Thomas Wilson White, and Natesha Somasundaram, with Megan Palinkas serving as script producer.

Ayesha Madon, James Majoos,...

A 2015 Meet the Nominees event.

Aacta has unveiled the full schedule for its Meet the Nominees series: nine events featuring Aacta nominees presented by Aftrs.

"We.re thrilled to be partnering with Aacta to present the 2016 Meet the Nominees events; an exclusive opportunity to hear the inside stories from Australia.s leading film, television and documentary makers," Aftrs CEO Neil Peplow said..

This year.s events will feature nominated editor Veronika Jenet Ase (The Daughter); editor Andrew Cooke (Hitting Home); sound designer Liam Egan Assg (The Daughter); editor Steven Robinson Ase (In The Shadow of the Hill); and sound designers Yulia Akerholt Assg (The Daughter) and Robert Mackenzie (Hacksaw Ridge).

Director Rosemary Myers (Girl Asleep) will feature on the panel for The Directors event, alongside Bentley Dean Adg and Martin Butler Adg, whose film Tanna was recently announced as Australia.s foreign language Oscars entry.

Bentley Dean Adg will also...

IndieWire’s Springboard column profiles up-and-comers in the film industry worthy of your attention.

Growing up is hard enough without the added issue of accidentally ending up in a weirdo parallel universe that maybe — just maybe! — isn’t so far estranged from the real world as one would like to think. That’s the idea behind director Rosemary Myers’ stylish and super-fun feature debut, “Girl Asleep.” The Australian coming-of-age tale, set in the oh-so-swinging seventies, follows the charmingly awkward Greta Driscoll (Bethany Whitmore) as she makes the jump into adulthood, care of a very weird fifteenth birthday party. Greta’s life is weird enough — she recently switched schools and is being bullied, her best pal Elliott (Harrison Feldman) wants more and her parents are totally nuts — but things go totally topside when she slips into another dimension, care of a surprise birthday party with shocks to spare.

Read More: ‘Girl Asleep...

Australian cinema may be best known for its gritty action films and even grimier crime dramas, but leave it to a first time filmmaker from “down under” to give the film world one of 2016’s most enjoyable, and original, teen comedies. Billed as a blending of Wes Anderson aesthetics and Lewis Carroll surrealism, freshman filmmaker Rosemary Myer’s Girl Asleep may sound, superficially, like an insufferably twee coming of age tale that has garnered more comparisons to Napoleon Dynamite than one may be comfortable with, but it’s truly a delightful achievement, particularly when it devolves into the surreal farce that is its third act.

The film introduces us to Greta Driscoll, a charming, but unassuming, 14-year-old as she heads towards her upcoming 15th birthday. A quiet wallflower of sorts, we first see Greta as she sits at a bench during a break from school, where she encounters a young man named Elliott.

Windmill Theatre’s ‘maverick sensibility’ behind the idiosyncratic winner of Australia’s richest film prize

South Australian production Girl Asleep was awarded the nation’s richest film prize at CinefestOz in Western Australia this weekend – and, the morning after the gala night in Busselton, the film’s writer, Matthew Whittet, still seems stunned.

“We’re totally blown away that it happened and we’re still just processing,” he says. “It’s incredible to have this sort of support going into our release [in a week]. The timing couldn’t be better for us.”

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Matthew Whittet, Rosemary Myers, Jo Dyer and Gillian Armstrong.

Girl Asleep, directed by Rosemary Myers, written by Matthew Whittet and produced by Jo Dyer, has won CinefestOZ's $100,000 Film Prize.

Saturday evening's awards ceremony in Busselton also saw the festival's Screen Legend award handed out to Gillian Armstrong.

Girl Asleep was selected ahead of Jasper Jones, Spin Out and The Death and Life of Otto Bloom. CinefestOZ received more than 30 submissions for the prize, with the winner decided by a jury made up of Armstrong, producer Sue Taylor (Looking for Grace), Dp Garry Phillips (The Railway Man) and actor-director Damian Walshe-Howling.

The jury watched each of the finalists with an audience before coming together to deliberate. Armstrong said the decision was unanimous.

Presenting the prize, Premier and Tourism Minister Colin Barnett announced that the Wa Government had secured a new two-year deal to continue sponsoring the event..

.CinefestOZ is a great...

Quirky coming-of-age-film directed by Rosemary Myers and written by Matthew Whittet beats Jasper Jones, Spin Out and The Death and Life of Otto Bloom

Quirky coming-of-age film Girl Asleep has won the richest prize in Australian film, beating the home favourite Jasper Jones at the CinefestOz festival in Wa.

Directed by Rosemary Myers and written by Matthew Whittet, Girl Asleep was chosen over three other finalists to win the $100,000 prize.

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Elizabeth Rayne Aug 24, 2016

Teenage angst, bad hair and portals to another dimension in 70s Australia. Here's the new trailer for the great-looking Girl Asleep...

Ever had a dream that was so thoroughly improbable and weird that you often wondered whether you’d actually gone to sleep or fallen through a portal?

Girl Asleep is a Pretty in Pink meets Where The Wild Things Are anti-fairy tale that explores the bizarre and fantastical corners of one teen’s overactive imagination. Rosemary Myers’ quirky retro film is adapted from a screenplay by Matthew Whittet (who first wrote it as a stage production) and stars Whittet, Bethan Whitmore, Tilly Cobham-Hervy, Imogen Archer, Harrison Feldman, Amber McMahon, Eamon Farren, Maiah Stewardston.

Seventies-era Australia is just as awkward a time and place as any to go through an adolescent crisis. As if high school isn’t enough of a horror, 14-year-old Greta Driscoll has to...

"No party, alright!" Oscilloscope has debuted a trailer for the upcoming release of an Australian coming-of-age indie comedy called Girl Asleep, the filmmaking debut of theater director Rosemary Myers. The film stars Bethany Whitmore as Greta Driscoll, a girl about to turn fifteen whose whole life is thrown into disarray when her parents invite the whole school to her surprise birthday party. It has been described as "equal measures Wes Anderson and Lewis Carroll", which sounds quite appealing, and an "enchanting journey into the absurd – and sometimes scary – depths of the teenage mind." The cast includes Harrison Feldman, Matthew Whittet, Amber McMahon, Eamon Farren and others. This looks so weird and so wacky and definitely Wes Anderson-inspired, but it seems like it will be fun to watch. Have a look below. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Rosemary Myers' Girl Asleep, found on YouTube: In this vibrant portrayal of Australian adolescence,...

Tilda Cobham-Hervey in Girl Asleep (photo credit: Shane Reid).

I know this was originally a piece of theatre; what made you want to adapt it for the screen?

When we made the play we always knew we were going to make the film. The play is a standalone play, but it was a great chance to test the story out really thoroughly and learn about the storytelling before we shot the film.

Why did you decide to write a play to make a film?

We were doing a trilogy of works for teenagers in the Adelaide Festival, and Katrina [Sedgwick] and Amanda [Duthie] had seen some of that work and thought it would be a very interesting audience to make a Hive project for. The writer Matthew Whittet and I were in the very first Hive workshop. We started developing it as a film, pitched it to the Hive and we knew...

Spin Out.

CinefestOZ has launched its full 2016 program, boasting a line-up that includes 82 films and 15 Australian premieres.

Festival CEO Malinda Nixon said that this year.s program was of .an exceptionally high quality. and offered something for everyone.

Gillian Armstrong will head up the Film Prize Jury, which will gift $100,000 to one of the four films competing; The Death and Life of Otto Bloom, Girl Asleep, Jasper Jones and Spin Out. All prize films will screen with an in conversation event.

Jasper Jones and Spin Out will have their world premieres at the festival, along with Tim Blackburn.s Burn Point and Wa feature Can.t Win Do Try from Jj DeCeglie.

Joining Armstrong as guests are writer Ben Elton (Upstart Crow), screenwriter, director and comedian Tim Ferguson (Film Prize Finalist Spin Out); actor Lincoln Lewis (Spin Out); actress, director and writer. Matilda Brown (The Death and Life of Otto...

Girl Asleep.

Rosemary Myers' coming-of-age drama Girl Asleep will get an Australian theatrical run via Umbrella Entertainment beginning September 8.

Starring Bethany Whitmore and Harrison Feldman,.Girl Asleep.debuted at the Adelaide Film Festival last year, where it was the fastest selling title in Aff history and won the Best Feature People Choice's Award.

The film has since screened to festival audiences in Berlin, Stockholm, Buenos Aires, Jeonju, Bogota, New York City, and Seattle, where it received the Grand Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival.

Girl Asleep sold out the Sydney Film Festival, and will also screen at Miff. A series of advance screenings and Q&A sessions are also set to take place around the country:

Vic – September 2 – Nova Cinema Carlton – 6:30pm with director Rosemary Myers, composer Harry Covill and actors Bethany Whitmore and Harrison Feldman

Nsw – September 4 – Dendy Newton – 6.30pm with Rosemary Myers, writer/actor...

The world premieres of Scott Hicks. documentary Highly Strung and Matt Saville.s comedy/drama A Month of Sundays are among the highlights of this year.s Adelaide Film Festival.

The program includes the debut features from Bangarra Dance Company.s Stephen Page and Windmill Theatre Company.s Rosemary Myers as well as Jocelyn Moorhouse.s The Dressmaker.

A hit at. Sundance this year, Sam Klemke.s Time Machine will have its Australian premiere at the festival, which runs from October 15-25.

Another highlight is the 21st anniversary screening of Rolf de Heer.s Bad Boy Bubby at the Waterside Workers Hall in Port Adelaide on October 17. De Heer said, .It's startling to think that 22 years after Bad Boy Bubby confounded everyone, including me, by winning five prizes at the Venice Film Festival, and 21 years after it was released to an unsuspecting general public, the film is still ticking away,...

Nine features have been nominated for this year's Awgie Awards for performance writing.

Eight telemovies and miniseries are in contention. The Australian Writers. Guild says nominations in the 25 categories for the 48th Annual Awgie Awards reflect the abundance of outstanding work currently being produced in Australia. Nominees for best original telemovie are Steven McGregor for Redfern Now: Promise Me and Katherine Thomson for House of Hancock, while Christopher Lee.s Gallipoli and Jan Sardi and Mac Gudgeon.s The Secret River contend for best adaptation in a television miniseries. There are four nominees for original television mini-series: The Principal by Alice Addison and Kristen Dunphy; The Kettering Incident by Vicki Madden, Andrew Knight, Cate Shortland and Louise Fox; Deadline Gallipoli by Jacquelin Perske, Stuart Beattie, Shaun Grant and Cate Shortland; and Love Child: Series 2 from Tim Pye, Cathryn Strickland, Chris McCourt, Jane Allen and Tamara Asmar. In the categories...

Tilda Cobham-Hervey and Imogen Archer, who made their debuts in Sophie Hyde.s 52 Tuesdays, have been cast in Windmill Theatre.s first feature, coming-of-age drama Girl Asleep.

Based on Matthew Whittet.s play which premiered at the 2014 Adelaide Festival, the film follows the chronically shy Greta Driscoll (Bethany Whitmore), whose 15th birthday party is spoilt when an uninvited guest steals her most treasured possession. Her attempts to retrieve it take her into a dark unknown world.

Whittet wrote the screenplay, the director is Rosemary Myers, who staged the play, and the producer is Jo Dyer (Lucky Miles; Boy Castaways). The four‐week shoot starts on January 19.

The investors are the South Australian Film Corporation, the Ian Potter Foundation and the Hive Production Fund, a collaboration between the Adelaide Film Festival, the Australia Council for the Arts, Screen Australia and ABC Arts.

The cast includes Harrison Feldman, Eamon Farren, Whittet, Amber McMahon...

Continuing their collaboration after Tim Winton.s The Turning, producer Robert Connolly and Indigenous director/choreographer Stephen Page will bring to the big screen an adaptation of Page.s dance theatre work Spear.

That.s one of two films commissioned by the second Hive Fund, an initiative of the Adelaide Film Festival in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts, Screen Australia and ABC Arts.

The other is Girl Asleep, the third in a trilogy of rites-of-passage Windmill Theatre stories by writer Matthew Whittet and director Rosemary Myers.

Page, the Bangarra Dance Theatre director and choreographer, directed one segment of The Turning. His feature directing debut, Spear is a contemporary hybrid feature film where two Aboriginal clans from urban and remote communities live in an apocalyptic world and must decide who will be the new leader for the next 100 years. The work will explore what this means to Indigenous men through dance,...

Mrs. Carey’s Concert, Bob Connolly’s first documentary since 2001′s Facing the Music, will open next month’s BigPond Adelaide Film Festival on February 24.

The biannual event will be closed by Brendan Fletcher’s Mad Bastards.

Mrs. Carey’s Concert (co-directed by Sophie Raymond) is one of the 14 projects supported by the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund. The film chronicles the preparations for a classical music concert at a Sydney’s girl school; both directors will be in attendance, alongside the school’s music director Karen Carey and some of her students.

Other guests in attendance will include:

The International Award jury – Julietta Sichel, Pierre Rissient, Hossein Valamanesh, Trevor Groth, and Robin Gutch; The Hive participants (Richard Tognetti, Meryl Tankard, Garry Stewart, Gideon Obarzanek, Kate Champion, Michael Kantor, Rose Myers, Chris Drummond, Matthew Whittet, Lynette Wallworth, Susan Norrie, Tony Krawitz Glendyn Ivin, Anna Broinowski, Ashlee Page, Amy Gebhardt and...

Moulin Rouge will make its Blu-ray debut on October 19 and you just know we have to celebrate this classic musical's Bd release. We have a new contest running and we're giving away copies of this new high-def disc to our readers. You know these titles will go fast, so be sure to enter this contest today.

Winners Receive:

Moulin Rouge Blu-ray disc

Here's How To Win!

Just "Like" (fan) the MovieWeb Facebook page (below) and then leave a comment below telling us why these prizes must be yours!

If you already "Like" MovieWeb, just leave a comment below telling us why these prizes must be yours!

Nicole Kidman (The Hours, Australia) sizzles in her Oscar-nominated role as Satine, the seductive courtesan and star of a popular French nightclub that caters to society's decadent elite. When she unwittingly draws Christian, a struggling writer played by Ewan McGregor (Amelia), into her spell,...