Friday, August 17, 2007

Article: The Courier Mail, August 6th, 2007

Family Makes BIFF Their Own

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THE Brisbane International Film Festival has prompted a reunion for Redcliffe filmmaker Laurie McInnes, and her actor-writer brother, William, nine years her junior.

As festival VIPs, the film celebrities have opted to stay with their mother, Iris, at the childhood Redcliffe home, north of Brisbane, they also shared with their late father, Colin, an elder brother and two sisters.

They they could have stayed at the $500 a night Fortitude Valley Emporium hotel that is headquarters for the festival's guests.

"There's been a lot of talk about our childhood,'' Laurie says. "Mum reckons acting is nothing much, but I'm always being asked to sign things for her,'' chimes in William, who gained a tertiary degree in law and economics before studying acting in Perth.

Iris, Laurie and relatives joined an admittedly nervous William on Saturday at the Regent Theatre in Brisbane for the Australian premiere of the locally-produced drama Unfinished Sky, filmed around Beaudesert, south of Brisbane.

In Unfinished Sky, he plays a widower farmer who hides an abused Afghani refugee (played by Dutch actor Monic Hendrickx) in the film directed by Peter Duncan. Laurie, who has recently returned to live in Redcliffe, travelled through much of Australia last year as director of photography on a film made by another former Brisbane filmmaker, Lawrence Johnston.

Her last BIFF involvement was the 1993 premiere of her Brisbane-made drama Broken Highway. She is soon to start production of a documentary about the history of Chinese gold-miners in north Queensland.

"Young William had his first starring role in a puppet show I presented at home,'' Laurie recalled. "I kept prompting him to say his lines, but didn't realise he couldn't read them as he was just four years old.''

He also played a role in the short film Laurie later made to win a place at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney to study directing.

"Perhaps one day he'll appear in a feature film of mine,'' she said of her 45-year-old brother, who is on a deadline to complete his third book, You Ate Her Alive for publication next year.

He enjoyed success in 2005 with his childhood reminiscence, A Man's Got To Have a Hobby.

Article: Gold Coast Bulletin, August 3rd, 2007

Sky's Limit on Debut Festival First Dibs on Flick
Renee Redmond

BEAUDESERT'S big screen credentials will be tested tomorrow night when Unfinished Sky makes its national debut at Brisbane's International Film Festival.

Producers Cathy and Mark Overett are hoping the $4.3 million Australian production, filmed at a farmhouse on Beaudesert's outskirts and starring Redcliffe-born actor William McInnes and Holland's Monic Hendrickx, will leave a lasting impression as its national release will not be until early next year.

Mrs Overett said Beaudesert was chosen as the key location for the film after a trip to the local pub led the film-makers to an unoccupied farmhouse. "When we were talking about location we wanted the traditional outback - flat and dry - but then we changed it to be amongst farmland and hills," she said. "We needed a farmhouse and the best way to find things is by going to the local pub. The house was empty at the time, so we had to dress it up ourselves."

The Brisbane producers said out of the five-week shoot, about four-and-a-half weeks were spent at Beaudesert, with a small amount of filming done in Brisbane's city.

Mrs Overett said while the film was 'local' it had universal themes, which she hoped would be enough to create international appeal.

"The film is based on a Dutch screenplay but it's very much Australian," she said.

Unfinished Sky is a grown-up love story with universal themes and a thriller twist, written and directed by Sydney's Peter Duncan and produced by the Overetts, of New Holland Pictures in Brisbane.

McInnes stars as a man who, after the suspicious death of his wife, withdraws to the seclusion of his farm. Monic Hendrickx plays an illegal refugee, Tahmeena, who in her bid for freedom from the ravages of Afghanistan, has been unwittingly sold into sex slavery in a small country town in southwest Queensland. Despite their reluctance, the two damaged people fall in love.

"It's a dark story with a lot of light moments in it. It's a heavy subject but the people in it are looking to the light in it," said Mrs Overett.

"The film is hot off the press; it won't be released nationally until early next year." The Overetts have previously worked on documentaries but said they were currently trying to finance another four feature projects.

Tomorrow night will be the first time the film is shown to the public. "It will be interesting to see what an audience not connected to the film will think," she said. "The Pacific Film and Television Commission is an investor in this film and it's really nice to have our film premiering in Queensland."

The film will make its debut at The Regent Cinemas in Brisbane to a sell-out audience but a second screening has been scheduled for Sunday at 3.40pm at Palace Centro Cinemas. Some tickets are still available.

Unfinished Sky is one of 121 films from 47 countries which will be screened during the Brisbane International Film Festival, which began last night. Arts Minister Rod Welford said the festival was about seeing the latest work from emerging and independent film-makers who were the 'creative lifeblood of the film industry'. "BIFF is so much more than a smorgasbord of movies for entertainment's sake - it is a chance to open a window on the world to witness the lives, experiences, cultures and challenges of other people," said Mr Welford.

Article: Sydney Morning Herald, July 7th, 2007

The Signs Are All There: in Between Tries, Change is Afoot Up North
William McInnes

It has been Origin week in Queensland. It sounds all vaguely Darwinian and there's an evolutionary feel in the air. Brisbane is a city filled with fine cafes and little nooks of groovy splendour. As people like to say to me "It's changing up here, it's changing".

The week starts as I crawl from the evolutionary football swamps by playing in a charity soccer match organised by the Queensland Government and the Queensland Roar soccer team. An initiative in a campaign against racism. The Queensland team plays a South African team. I play in a curtain raiser. Nobody can find boots that will fit my feet, so I play in my pair of Colorado loafers that look like massive correctors. It doesn't really matter. The day is a beautiful, clear winter's special warmed by what is trying to be accomplished.

Later I stare down from the grandstand and hear an ex-international rugby league player shake his head and say almost dreamily: "Soccer at Lang Park. Been a lovely day - but come Wednesday she'll be different. Origin."

Driving through a town north of Brisbane - more evolution. Caboolture used to be a farming and dairy area, now it is a place of signs. Billboards, sprawling prefabricated shopping barns and housing estates. It has also been earmarked as a potential nuclear power station site. I pass the town square and see people dressed in robes and armour. There is a sign, "The Abbey Medieval Festival".

I look as a large round man in full chain-armour and helmet bellows like a loon at holidaying school children: "Enjoying your holidays, knaves?"

He waves a sword and the children scream. Behind him an old woman on an invalid scooter, festooned in maroon and white streamers, beeps the tiny horn at Sir Podgy to make way and let her pass. Leaning on a palm tree nearby, a man in an old Queensland rugby league jersey chats and laughs with his shadow.

"The home town of Keith Urban," says another sign. To think they want to put a nuclear power plant here.

"It's Origin Week," says yet another sign, just in case anybody's forgotten.

The next morning Origin jumpers and hats and flags are everywhere. I go with my mother to her tai chi class, run by a man called Kevin. An elderly woman in her late 70s wears a Queensland State of Origin jumper. As she unfurls her Flying Goose she looks at me. "I'm a proud Queenslander," she says. And she is. It is as if the state is encouraged, induced or just chooses to forget that it's an increasingly cosmopolitan place with a lifestyle envied by many.
During this one week Queensland is prompted and pushed into identifying itself through its relationship with NSW, or more pointedly, Sydney. And it's all one way. Sydney is the centre of evil. Those Mexicans in Sydney - they'll cook the ref! Maroonwash! scream the headlines. Huge photos of huge men with huge jaws and bored eyes stare from newspapers and televisions.

Queensland has won the series but somehow they are still underdogs.

On game night I sit in a local footy club; the climax of a week of evolution. Next to me a man frantically answers a phone call from somebody at home. He tries to talk through how to turn a TV on. "Press Av ... or TV ... Press it again ... anything?"

A groan from every crevice of the club is heard when Phil Gould's massive head appears on screen. "You busted arse."

"Press ... press DVD."

Willie Mason is booed and heckled. "You happy hand clapper! Let go of his head."

Young men drink alcoholic soft drink. The man next to me still whispers instructions. "AV, press AV ... it's there ... It must be there."

A lone NSW supporter cheers a little too loudly when Queensland's Brent Tate is injured. "You cat," he screams.

Come on, turn it up, I hear myself yell.

The young NSW supporter turns and yells: "I used to play this game and I'm naturalised." What that means is anyone's guess.

As soon as it's among us it's over. And Queensland have lost. Lost. An announcement comes over the club intercom: "Attention patrons, the result of tonight's Origin: Queensland 4, the Referee 18."

There's a silence for a few minutes and then a pleasant and bewildering calm descends.

Testosterone disappears into the ether.

A man two tables away wearing maroon war paint on his middle-aged cheeks and an ill-fitting

Queensland jersey, takes off his Toad Warrior head band and turns to his friend. "I'm just going to fetch a chamomile tea, like one?" Now that is evolution.

Article: Sun Herald, Sydney, July 22,, 2007

New Name Will Give This Story a Happy Ending
William McInnes

A nomination in the Australian Book Industry Awards means that William McInnes is one step closer to that much longed-for slash - as in actor/author.

IF anybody says that awards don't count, don't matter and aren't important, please don't tell that to the thousands of people who get dressed up, get excited, get depressed and bang on about them. Those who complain are usually the first in and best dressed.

I have been to many awards nights. Once at a local football club I presented a crow bar painted gold and mounted on a bit of wood to the recipient of "The Best Hardman Award". This was to a young fellow who said: "Outside me 18th birthday this is the greatest night of me life."

I've been to awards with red carpets and crowds. I've been to school speech nights and sporting nights. Being nominated and recognised is always good. Always. And it's something you never take for granted.

Being recognised with a nomination for Cricket Kings in the Australian Book Industry Awards is an acknowledgment of having done well, or at least is recognition of having had a go. Of taking a chance to try something different creatively and instead of boofing about in make-up and costume, to sit down and write a book. To me, finishing a book was an award in itself.
The nomination also means that I take a further step in the direction of becoming a fully fledged Slash.

If anybody used to recognise me it was usually as an actor. Or someone who may owe them money. But with more recognition you gain a slash. There are some slashes you don't want, actor/drunk or actor/tool, but actor/author is one that I will happily accept. It is fun and nice, especially when I know I'm not the world's best actor or the world's greatest writer.

It's something that is earned and in no way expected. You certainly don't want a three-way slash happening: actor/author/tool. Though straddling the slash is sometimes entertaining.
Actors love a prop. A busy actor carries a mobile or an electronic organiser. An important actor usually has an assistant with the phone and organiser. But to attain that elusive title, Thinking Actor, you can't go past carrying a book.

The perfect prop for a Thinking Actor is a book. And the bigger the better. I personally got a great deal of mileage out of lugging around The Fatal Shore for nearly half a decade.

The trick, of course, is to remember to move the bookmark occasionally. That was my downfall. The successful Thinking Actor usually uses a spare cab charge as a bookmark, remembering to casually waft this much sought-after form of currency in Acting Land while thumbing thoughtfully through the book in Thinking Actor fashion.

And there is something wonderfully terrifying in a humorous way about actors talking about writing. While shooting a version of My Brother Jack some years ago, there were earnest discussions on set about a lengthy scene we were to film. The actor in question had some thoughts on the long speech that he was about to undertake. The speech was taken word for word from the pen of George Johnston's great Australian story.

"Listen," said the actor, waving around the script, "we don't need this."

The director, a kind and decent man, stared back politely. "Really?"

"No, not all," pronounced the actor and then he uttered the words that make the soul of every writer wither and revolt. "I can do it with a look, mate!"

I winced, but I couldn't really say anything - almost every actor has done it. Let him who is without sin cast the first LOOK.

You could almost hear old George Johnston rasping in his grave.

But writers and actors love to tell stories. That is the great thing that drives them both.

But authors are , if you like, the sole creators. The ones who make a story. The ones who walk a lonely path. The ones who are prepared to look around at life, at our country and our people and our world. The ones prepared to put their heads above the ruck and draw a picture of what life is like from their view. Those prepared to have their heads kicked critically. The ones who are solely to blame for the worth of what they have created.

I guess at its best that's what being an author is. As I said, I'm not the world's greatest author and I don't occupy a lonely garret. But writing and books are things I have always held in high regard. To be nominated and acknowledged is such a bonus.

The problem, of course, is when the winner is read out ... oh no, let's not go there.

Cricket Kings by William McInnes is published by Hachette and is short listed for Australian General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2007 Australian Book Industry Awards, which will be presented on Tuesday night.