Introduction and Outline

The 1970’s saw the birth of both the Australian and Singapore Film Industries. The western film “Mad Max”, kicked off the Renaissance Age in Australia while “Medium Rare” marked the first Singaporean film since declaring independence. This blog, written by two Singaporean and two Australian students, contains comprehensive analysis, discussion, comparisons and contrasts between the respective film industries.

Both industries struggle to keep up with the hegonomy that is Hollywood. Hollywood continues to dominate box offices in both countries, and constantly garner higher critical praise than film’s produced in the respective countries. On 7th September 2007, Australia’s Minister for the Arts and Sport, and the Singapore Minister for Foreign Affairs, signed an Australian-Singapore co-production agreement. The agreement meant that production incentives offered by the respective film industries will be available to producers from both countries, with intentions of a greater cultural collaboration between Australia and Singapore.  Australia’s Minister for the Arts and Sport noted that “Singapore is actively marketing its film sector in Asia, which is an increasingly important region for the global film and television industry… Australian–Singaporean productions will create opportunities for Australian filmmakers to access this significant market… film co-production agreements promote cultural and creative exchange and help to share the economic costs and benefits of productions, encouraging the output of high-quality productions.” As Singapore’s film industry has difficulty competing with the hyperpower of Hollywood, Australia’s film history has been characterised as one of ‘boom and bust’ due to the unstable and cyclical nature of its industry. There have been deep troughs when few films were made for decades and high peaks when a glut of films reached the market. The Australian Film Industry can be split into the following categories: The Silent Period (1890-1930), Early Sound (1930-1960), The Interval (1960’s), The Renaissance (1970’s), The Explosion (1980’s), and The Post New Wave (1990’s).

The Australian film industry continues to produce a reasonable number of films each year, but in common with other English-speaking countries, Australia has often found it difficult to compete with the American film industry. It is important if you a media or film scholar, or a simple film admirer, to recognise the history of the Australian Film industry when you consider some important keys facts like Australia being the first country in the world to air a full feature film and how it was deemed to be a film industry powerhouse in the early 1900’s which is unique considering how isolated Australia is from current film heavyweight America.

There is an ongoing debate of the need and role of government support for the Australian film industry. Some argue in favour of government support as being the only way that the local film industry can compete against the hegemony of Hollywood. The argument against government support is that the industry is viable without support and will become stronger if increasingly globalised market forces are allowed full and untrammeled play. Others argue that a film industry in itself has little value. The history of the industry in Australia is to some extent a result of the ascendancy of one position over the other.

Singapore cinema, on a global scale, is still considered to be a young industry. With only truly recognised Singaporean films dating back merely in the 1990s, it is definitely a partial reason as to why Singapore films don’t reach out yet on a global scale.  Medium Rare, 1991, was the first Singapore funded full-length English film released in local cinemas. It is easy to consider Singapore cinema as still within its ‘nurturing stage’.

 To understand the history of Singapore cinema, one must look further back into the developmental stages of Singapore’s budding arts hub. Tan (date), mentions that “culture and the arts have been important in post-independence Singapore for their role in socializing Singaporeans for the People’s Action Party (PAP) government’s nation-building project” (p.38). Gaining independence in 1965, the government’s development policy mainly focused on the strengthening of Singapore’s financial base, in turn relying on the limited “cultural and artistic superstructure” that the national finances could bear (Tan, date, p.38). Back then, after gaining independence, the arts were not considered as part of the priority to Singapore’s nation building. Tan quotes Koh Tai Ann, professor of English literature, “The arts have never been seen as a basic need. Only after the basic material needs – the primary concerns of Singapore’s mostly immigrant community had been met through economic growth and development, could the arts really take off and become and integral part of more widely bourgeois lifestyles” (Cite).

The Australian film industry (AFI) generates almost 1.6 billion Australian dollars per year to the Australian economy. It employs more than 16,000 people in 2,174 businesses. Nevertheless, people aspiring to be apart of the AFI would be well prepared to enter the industry with a significant knowledge of its current state, especially in context with the film industry’s around the world. The cliché view is that the Australian Film Industry is as bleak as the film’s it creates. Cultural commentator Syliva Lawson described Australian films as “monotonous”, noting “they are all way too serious.” This critique is highlighted when viewed in contrast with the largely upbeat, feel good thematic consistency of most Hollywood films. However, 2009 was one of the most commercially and critically successful years for the AFI in recent years, with My Year Without Sex, Samson & Delilah, Beautiful Kate, Last Ride, Bastardy, Disgrace, Mary and Max, Blessed and Balibo all achieving high critical acclaim, with Samon & Delilah in particular gaining international interest, winning Best First Feature Film at the Cannes Film Festival.

When viewing the AFI in relation to Hollywood, it is important to note that high profile Australian film directors including Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet) and Peter Weir (Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Truman Show) are working within the Hollywood system, and filmmakers achieving success in Australia often leave to start up production studios and create films in America.

Low-budget indie films rarely succeed in obtaining theatrical releases in Australia, while film’s produced by the Australian Film Body, “Screen Australia” are much more successful, with 244 of the 275 film’s made between 1988 and 2008 achieving theatrical release. Despite this, the amount of Australian film’s gaining theatrical releases in other countries including Singapore have sharply declined every year.

Australian film’s have a notorious reputation for gaining extremely limited and short theatrical releases, with the highest grossing films at the Australian box office continuing to be Hollywood-produced films, with Avatar topping the list, followed by Titanic, Harry Potter 7: Part 2, Shrek 2 and Lord of the Rings. Crocodile Dundee is number 6, and number 1 when excluding US titles, despite being released in 1986. The second highest grossing Australian film is “Australia”, the Baz Luhrmann directed film which opened to critical disdain around the world.

Some say that the solution to the ailing industry has been to “Hollywoodize” Australian films by creating upbeat, commercially viable titles to attract large audiences. Other’s argue, though, that creating these kind of film’s would have the potential to ruin the artistic integrity of a filmmaker, and could even erode a perceived national identity which is nurtured from idiosyncratically Australian films.

Transnational cinema would very much seem to be the up and coming trend that follows Singapore cinema. The adjective, transnational, is defined as “extending beyond the boundaries, interests, etc., of a single nation (Collins English Dictionary, 2003). In the recent decade, Singapore Cinema has extended its reach out to global cinema for collaborative productions. Countries namely, – Hong Kong, Australia, China, etc., have “encouraged the production of less Singapore-centric, more universally popular box office genres such as horror and romance”. Since 2003, Raintree Pictures – Singapore’s major production company, invested in a variety of Hong Kong productions that range from: “award-winning romance films (Turn Left Turn Right, 2003), thrillers (Infernal Affairs, 2003) and horror movies (The Eye, 2002; The Eye 2, 2004)” (Cite). This has been truly an attempt to make Singapore international and borderless movies that could extend its name beyond Asia (Cite).

This blog contains discussion and responses to some fundamental and existential questions related to our respective film industries. Do we need a rich history to produce good films? What is the film culture like in Australia and Singapore? How big of a concern is profit of films? Does it create national identity? Do we need to bring the “standard” to a Hollywood level? Will we lose/gain anything in the process of bringing standard to Hollywood level? What will happen if the world is governed by just one film commission entity? Each country has been split up into four different categories: Film History, Film Policy, Producers and Current Trends and Audiences. In addition to introductory videos to each section, you will also find interviews with Singaporean filmmakers, Australian film exhibitor and Head of an Australian Film Distribution company, Eddie Tamir and an audio interview with Lisa French, Ph.D.