Mara Jean Quinn, 35, has spent all her money making a movie.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her film, Andamooka, is about a woman whose life crumbles before her 30th birthday, so in search of comfort and clarity, she sets out to spend the milestone in the outback.<\/p>\n
“I’ve personally put over $100,000 into this film,” Quinn said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t own a house, I don’t have any money to my name and I have a family.”<\/p>\n
Her film, which culminates in the South Australian town of the same name, was shot in 2019 on a shoestring budget, by a crew of three.<\/p>\n
Quinn said it was inspired by a break-up and most characters were found during the trip from Longreach to Alice Springs and Andamooka.<\/p>\n
“I was working in post-production in Sydney \u2026 and it just wasn’t giving me any joy and I really wanted to go see central Australia,” she said.<\/p>\n
Quinn is doing the hard yards taking her film on the road and screening it at any film festival she can, a reality for most independent filmmakers in Australia.<\/p>\n
“Distribution has been impossible. It’s been a huge journey of self-belief,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mara Jean Quinn and Greg Dolgopolov at the showing of Andamooka in outback Queensland.\u00a0 (Supplied: Allan Coker)<\/p>\n
Making an indie film<\/p>\n
Andamooka recently screened at Vision Splendid, a film festival that’s been running in Winton in central-west Queensland for 11 years.<\/p>\n
Festival creative director Greg Dolgopolov said Australian indie, or independent, films should be better supported.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Winton’s Royal Open Air Theatre is one of the venues that hosts Vision Splendid each year.\u00a0 (Supplied: Allan Coker)<\/p>\n
“The costs for releasing a film are often so high that those films will play in a few select cinemas or film festivals before they kind of disappear,” Dr Dolgopolov said.<\/p>\n
“I want Australian cinemas to have a quota system for Australian films \u2026 they need to be given a leg up.”<\/p>\n
The film finishes in Andamooka in South Australia.\u00a0 (Supplied: Mara Jean Quinn)<\/p>\n
Andamooka sat untouched until 2023, when Quinn again gave up any income to start post-production and make the film a reality.<\/p>\n
“I ended up in lots of debt to my mum and filmmaking professionals in a deferred payment scheme, which is how indie films get made.”Winton inspires movie<\/p>\n
Another Australian filmmaker Tristan Barr recently screened his fifth indie production as an “audience test” at the festival in Winton, the town that inspired the film.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dunny Derby will likely premiere later this year.\u00a0 (Supplied: Tristan Barr)<\/p>\n
He directed Dunny Derby \u2014 The Legend of Derek Dallas & The Underbogs, written by Matthew Caffow.<\/p>\n
It follows a team trying to beat the “city slicker” antagonists in an infamous dunny race in town.<\/p>\n
“We were in Winton shooting a horror film and heard about the local dunny races,” Barr said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Jacka-Poos took\u00a0out the\u00a0Porcelain Throne title at the most recent Winton Outback Festival. (Supplied: Winton Outback Festival)<\/p>\n
“We just thought this is an amazing environment and unlike anything we’d ever seen.”<\/p>\n
But it took almost six years to get the movie together.<\/p>\n
“It’s incredibly hard, the filmmakers are taking all the risk to do it \u2026 you need to be in a position where you can work for a few years for free,” Barr said.<\/p>\n
“We got supported in many ways by different people along the way.<\/p>\n
“Festivals are incredible because you get feedback.”<\/p>\n
Barr said the film was likely to officially premiere late this year or early next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tristan Barr and Matthew Caffow speak at their audience test in Winton.\u00a0 (Supplied: Allan Coker)<\/p>\n
Role of film festivals<\/p>\n
Dr Dolgopolov said film festivals played a crucial role for independent productions.<\/p>\n
“There are some really great Australian films that if people don’t see them at a film festival, they may never see them at all,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They inspire people and people often want more, but you know in the real world they can’t access more outside of film festivals and that’s where the real problem lies.<\/p>\n
“If you look at any regional or even outer suburban cinema complex, they’re not the venues for screening Australian independent films, they just don’t make it there.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Vision Splendid Film Festival has been running in Winton for 11 years.\u00a0 (Supplied: Allan Coker)<\/p>\n
Cinema Association Australasia executive director Cameron Mitchell said local Australian-made films contributed about 5 per cent of Australia’s box-office revenue annually.<\/p>\n
“In 2024, 85 Australian local films were released in Australian cinemas,” Mr Mitchell said.<\/p>\n
“The Australian cinema community works closely with Australian filmmakers to support the creation of Australian content for the enjoyment of Australian audiences.”<\/p>\n
Quinn is still on the road to finding a wider audience for her film.<\/p>\n
“Other filmmakers have been really inspired by the fact that I did make a feature film on the smell of an oily rag as a nobody.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mara Jean Quinn, 35, has spent all her money making a movie.\u00a0 Her film, Andamooka, is about a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9089,64,63,9088,9091,134,9086,9085,9087,9090],"class_list":["post-7239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-andamooka","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-film-industry","tag-dunny-derby","tag-entertainment","tag-film-festivals","tag-indie-films","tag-outback","tag-vision-splendid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}