This Manifesto was written by Richard Wolstencroft in May/June 2005 with the advice and consultation of many industry professionals, who wish to remain anonymous.

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  1. We declare the Australian Film Industry to be in a State of Emergency requiring immediate and on going action and debate, some of which we hope will be sparked by this very Manifesto.
  2. We are concerned in this Manifesto with strategies and ideas for saving the Australian Film Industry - not to specifically advocate, recommend, dogmatise or promote a style, technique or method of making films - apart from some general recommendations and suggestions on the subjects of genre and local avant-garde cinema.
  3. We will into Being the Second Australian Film Renaissance.
  4. We will into Being a more diverse, interesting, daring, confronting and challenging Australian cinema.
  5. We will into Being a more cost effective, cheaper more responsible Australian cinema.
  6. We acknowledge our fore-runners and benefactors in Australian cinema from Ken G Hall to the filmmakers of the first Australian Film Renaissance, Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford, Fred Schepsi, Tim Burstall, Brian Trenchard Smith, Gillian Armstrong, George Miller (both of them), Philippe Mora, Richard Franklin, Phillip Adams, Bert Deling, Phillip Noyce and John Duigan. Also we salute the great underground and avant garde filmmakers of this country Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, Paul Winkler, Albie Thoms, David Perry,Michael Lee, Dirk de Bruyn, Chris Knowles, Marcus Bergner and James Clayden. We also acknowledge the more recent contributions to Australian Film from Andrew Dominik, Geoffrey Wright, Baz Luhrman, Richard Lowenstein, Jocelyn Moorhouse, Rob Sitch, Jane Campion, Alkinos Tsilimidos and Rolf De Heer. We call on all these filmmakers to use their profiles, talents and cinematic passion to help younger, newer and struggling filmmakers in the fight to save the Australian Film Industry by donating their time and energy, where and when they can, to projects, schools, events and festivals of their choosing.
  7. We call for drastic change in the Australian Film Industry as a reaction to the State of Emergency, particularly the attitudes and processes of funding bodies at Federal and State levels, as well as changes at film schools and major Film Festivals.
  8. We call for an End to the Political Correctness that has been stifling creativity in Australian film for close to twenty years.
  9. Let us again see Australian films made with passion, unfettered by the attitudes of stale committees and backward aesthetic standards and tastes.
  10. We say lets remember the audience once again in Australian film. Australian audiences should not be expected to ‘support’ a local film purely for that reason. The industry of late has been misguided believing Australian films will be supported simply out of some misplaced notion of cinematic patriotism. Australian audiences must feel compelled to attend the cinema based on the quality, excitement, buzz, contemporary relevance and entertainment value of the film itself, and also from a fundamental desire to see great stories told from all corners of the globe - including their own country, Australia.
  11. Let us see an acceptance of more diversity in Australian film by the embracing of Genre filmmaking at all levels of development, funding, production and distribution. When we say genre we are talking about Horror, Crime, Science Fiction, Thriller, Action and Erotic cinema added to the already prevalent Comedy genre (that needs to be rethought for Australian audiences and made more contemporary ala “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, “Little Britain”, etc).
  12. We suggest a path to saving the Australian film industry lies through a greater diversity of the type and style of films in this country. For example the production of Genre films that people actually want to see both locally and internationally (along the lines of recent Aussie helmed horror films “Wolf Creek” and “Saw”) therefore supporting and paying for more funding in avant-garde /underground film circles. This in turn we hope will create a Yin and Yang effect of creative and commercial alchemy. We envisage a Quentin Tarantino or Peter Jackson style of filmmaking, backing and supporting through their commercial success, a Stan Brakhage or Kenneth Anger style of filmmaking ( …this is just a broad sketch of our meaning).
  13. We suggest a temporary banning of all ‘coming-of-age’ stories from Australian filmmaking - at least temporarily until we learn a new approach in making these kinds of films. Also we suggest banning along similar lines ‘the beautiful shot Australian road movie’ and ‘the quirky Australian comedy’. Replace these dull cinematic concepts with original, cutting edge and daring explorations of the Horror genre, the Crime/Thriller genre and the Action genre, or many other vicissitudes of such and other genres.
  14. We say NO to the status quo of committees, application forms, funding rounds and all the bureaucratic minutiae of the current Australian federal and state government funding system. These need to be revolutionized, simplified and streamlined. One should not need a degree in filling-out-funding-applications to be successful in the Australian Film Industry. The funding bodies need to be more proactive in their search for new talent and in streamlining/explaining their procedures for funding.
  15. We say to funding bodies like the AFC and Film Victoria that you need to act like producers, pursuing film projects and filmmakers with the same passion that they possess and helping them complete your paperwork and bureaucracy with as little interruption to the creative spirit, authenticity and integrity of the film project and filmmaker as possible. We want creative, high-profile, award-wining or simply talented filmmakers called into your offices for meetings about their future projects and ideas for the industry.
  16. We call for an end to the ‘Professional Australian Film Industry Funding Bureaucrat’ who has been driving this industry into the ground for close to twenty years. If you don’t have vision, cinematic passion and a daring taste for film then go work for another government department where such lack of inspiration is a bonus. The film industry is not for you.
  17. We say that a large percentage of staff who hold senior positions at the AFC or state funding agencies need to have written, produced or directed at least one feature and/or four or five shorts. We are sick to death of talented filmmakers going ‘cap-in-hand’ to a film industry bureaucracy who understand nothing about the practical reality of making films (and especially nothing about cinematic passion and the distributing and marketing thereof). If necessary, filmmakers between projects should hold rotating senior funding positions (depending on availability) to enforce this general rule.
  18. Some professional non-filmmaker staff may be necessary and should be selected from industry and film enthusiasts, cinephiles and intellectuals who best understand the spirit of The MUFF Manifesto and other cutting edge critiques of the current industry. Some staff within the funding agencies are already excellent and show the right spirit. These people should be promoted to positions of power immediately.
  19. We call for the establishment of a body that will bring about said changes. We call on State and Federal governments to establish carefully selected Film Industry Crisis Ombudsmen in reaction to the State of Emergency to investigate the current industry dilemma and act upon the findings of such an investigation.
  20. We call for the establishment of a special committee of Filmmakers (Writers, Directors, Producers), Exhibitors and Distributors from both old and new schools to be headed by aforementioned Film Industry Crisis Ombudsmen to assess, evaluate and make changes inside both State and Federal funding bodies.
  21. We believe without the establishment of these Ombudsmen (one federally and one in Victoria, NSW, SA, QLD and WA) that the industry will continue to labour under a crisis or a failure of mid level bureaucratic industry management and never achieve its true potential again which in turn will perhaps terminally deflate the industry for years or decades to come.
  22. We can make films cheaper and more efficiently in this country by reducing the size of crews, streamlining industry union guidelines, shooting on location and utilising new technologies like HD DV.
  23. We welcome the recent AFC industry initiative of Indivision, but we ask the AFC and local funding bodies to go further in this area. We call on funding bodies to establish ultra low budget film grants of $250, 000 to $500,000 a piece and make 10 to 20 of such projects per state per year. The talent should be pooled from the best local talent as exhibited at independent festivals and film schools around Australia and also from existing talent prepared to work at low budgets. These funding suggestions should be financed by immediately stopping production on any of the three above mentioned temporarily banned Australian Film tropes (see section 13). In addition to supporting the AFC’s development of IndiVision, a call for local distributors and exhibitors to open more opportunities for independent films to penetrate the market place. Coupled with government support in promotion and advertising, access to more venues and flexibility in ticket pricing at the box office, independent film culture MUST be championed in this country as it has been in the US, UK and Europe, with great results.
  24. In regard to low budget films we call on the funding bodies to understand that the writer/director often acts as a producer and to support and acknowledge this low budget industry fact.
  25. The FFC should continue supporting a diversity of larger budget productions, especially those that have strong overseas potential, through speaking the universal film language of Genre.
  26. The industry could look into establishing a Film Lottery Fund like those established in the UK, as a further source of income.
  27. A possible small local production industry tax could be placed by the Federal Government on the distribution and exhibition of US movies and Entertainment products in this country. The smallest 0.5% or .25% tax on foreign films and entertainment in Australia would reap millions for the local industry, to give it a financial kick start in all areas of production.
  28. We call an end to forced, trite and token Australian content in movies. The fact that any film is made in Australia with Australian cast and crew will make it Australian enough. We do not need to force our culture on to any one. Australia is filled with artists, inspired business people, new agers and hippies, gangsters, politicians, murderers, perverts, right wingers, left wingers, Feminists, Aborigines, occultists, Queer advocates, introverts, extroverts, dandies, charismatic personalities, soldiers and psychopaths. Let’s see their real stories told with as much passion and style as possible to fascinate, entice and transfix the world.
  29. Will a return to a commercial style of filmmaking lead to the lack of support of the true underground and avant guard filmmakers in this country as some say it did in the 70’s? We advocate it paying for a resurgence in real avant-garde/ underground filmmaking. We call for the incestuous mixing of avant-garde underground and commercial genre filmmaking at subversive and subplot levels. A special action committee of the best independent underground and avant-garde filmmakers needs to be established to work out appropriate budgets, projects (at least ten features a year and many shorts in each state) and special needs for our most ignored cinematic artists. The success of the ‘turn to Genre’ at the commercial end will fully fund this new nurturing of the underground and also make it possible for underground avant-garde filmmakers to make the crossover to larger budget productions and ideas if they so desire. Thereby launching our best avant-garde filmmakers onto the world stage.
  30. The points in this manifesto are not dogmatic or dictatorial but are merely suggestions and recommendations for further discussion. They form a rhizome of thought strands that if debated and actualised correctly could have profound and positive effects on the industry.
  31. We call for the restructuring of the OFLC into the establishment of a new ratings board along the lines of the American MPAA. The new body should rate films but not censor them. Filmmakers and distributors should as they do in the States have the option to release their films unrated. England has relaxed its draconian censorship laws recently, it is time for Australia to do the same.
  32. We call for the Establishment of “The MUFF Academy” in 2006, a guerrilla, low budget independent film course to be held potentially in conjunction with a major University, College or Tertiary Institution over a two year four semester period. Classes to be held two nights a week, outside normal hours in the Evening and consist of practical lessons in making low budget films, experiences with reflections of filmmakers themselves on their art and video works to be critiqued, deconstructed and examined in class. It will also include tutorials on classic low budget films and anything else the selected charter of MUFF Academy filmmakers wish to include in the course. It will be a course that demands Action above all else and part of the assessment criteria over the two years will be the production of small or miniscule budget mini feature. Graduates will receive a MUFF Academy Diploma at the end of a two-year course, a diploma that will be a mark of practical excellence and innovation in the industry of the future.
  33. We hope this manifesto can be openly and constructively discussed and debated.

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