Kokoda – Australian Film

I was watching a news report yesterday on Australia’s Channel Nine news which gets piped into here in New Zealand by Prime TV when they have downtime in the mornings. There was a piece on the Australian film industry and several filmmakers were moaning at how bad the industry is in Australia because the Government doesn’t promote and fund it like the NZ Govt does to ours.

They mentioned a few films that showed great promise but have never gotten to completion due to lack of funding, and one mentioned was called ‘Kokoda’. Apparently this film, which was obviously about Australia’s famous battle on the Kokoda trail in PNG during WWII, was fully funded by an offshore backer, but a market change saw them lose all their money or something so funding dried up when it was well into production. The Govt won’t fund to complete it, despite it promising to be great according to the report.

I looked up Kokoda on IMDb and found this 12 minute short film
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439818/

I wonder, is this related to it? Was it perhaps edited from footage already shot and the makers have tried to salvage something??

What a shame they don’t complete the film, the Aussies make great war films that are usually very important to their history and culture as well as simply entertainment. Sadly all the Govt wants is them to make second-rate Hollywood flicks like Matrix and Star Wars to bring in the US dollars rather than regenerate their own industry.

Has anyone seen this short flick on the link?