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West Australian
03-07-2025
- Business
- West Australian
State Government charges ahead with plans to grow WA screen industry despite Trump's tariff threats
Despite threats from US President Donald Trump to impose 100 per cent tariffs on all foreign-made films, which cast doubt on WA's investment in the film sector, the State Government is charging ahead with its plans to grow WA's screen industry and workforce. During Budget estimates on Thursday, the State Government outlined its plans to grow WA's screen industry workforce, a move it admits the US President wouldn't be pleased with. It has allocated $5 million in the 2025–26 Budget for a capacity-building program intended to 'fast-track growth in key sectors of the local screen industry' by helping businesses scale-up through improved infrastructure and services. Last month's Budget also increased the rebate on WA post-production, digital and visual effects expenditure to a flat 20 per cent for projects with budgets of more than $100,000. Previously, the incentive was a 20 per cent rebate on qualifying post-production expenditure for the first $500,000, and 10 per cent thereafter. The rebate is aimed at bringing more film productions to WA as part of the $20 million WA Production Attraction Incentive Fund, which was first announced in 2021. 'This is the package that I joke, perhaps people don't want to talk too much to President Trump about, because they're quite generous,' Minister for Creative Industries Simone McGurk said on Thursday. Although posts in early May warned of the film tariffs, and President Trump said he authorised the US Commerce Department to act because America's film industry was dying a 'very fast death', no official action has occurred so far. 'Other countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated,' Mr Trump said in a Truth Social post. 'This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat . . . it is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda.' 'WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!' The tariffs would be a major plot twist for the State Government, given a $290m film studio is currently under construction in Malaga and due to open next year. Despite the funding commitments, the State Government won't mandate local content requirements. Rather, it will focus on creating opportunities for WA workers and businesses through incentives. 'While there won't be a mandated component for local content, actually making sure that there are opportunities for West Australians and West Australian companies is very much at the core of the screen industry strategy,' Ms McGurk said. Ms McGurk said the Government was committed to supporting and creating a wide range of job opportunities across the film industry. 'We will be committing to a published plan coming out before the end of the calendar year, in relation to all of the different people working directly in the production of film, but also . . . film-adjacent occupations,' she said. '(That) could be anything from writing, script development, production, it could be in set design, it could be in set construction, it could be in make-up, it could be in costumes.'
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Director Richard Linklater defiantly says Trump film tariffs are ‘not gonna happen'
Boyhood director Richard Linklater isn't putting much stock in President Donald Trump's film tariff threat. The Texas-born filmmaker was asked about the president's plan at Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, where he is debuting his new movie, Nouvelle Vague. 'The tariff thing, that's not gonna happen right? That guy changes his mind like 50 times in one day,' Linklater said of Trump. 'It's the one export industry in the U.S., it would be kind of dumb to… Whatever, we don't have to talk about that.' On whether it has become more expensive to make films in the U.S., Linklater added: 'I think the true indie film, the no-budget film, has cost the same for the last 60 years. It's always about how much you have, so that doesn't change much.' Earlier this month, President Trump revealed he was starting the process of putting in place 100 percent tariffs on any movie made outside of the U.S. 'The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,' Trump claimed on Truth Social. 'Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated.' The president argued that it was an issue of national security and propaganda. 'This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,' he said. 'It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!' 'Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands,' he added. 'WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!' It remains unclear how such a tariff would work and whether it would be applied only to theatrical releases or also include streaming, as well as how it would differentiate between movies and TV shows. Movie producers have more often chosen to film in low-cost production locations as Hollywood blockbusters get more and more expensive. One union said Trump's tariffs could be a 'knock-out blow' to the industry, with many filmmakers having left the U.S. for countries such as the U.K. and Canada as they try to lower production costs. The U.K. Media Union Bectu issued the warning, with boss Philippa Childs telling the BBC: 'The government must move swiftly to defend this vital sector, and support the freelancers who power it, as a matter of essential national economic interest.' Before starting his second term, Trump appointed three actors, Mel Gibson, Jon Voight, and Sylvester Stallone, to serve as 'special envoys' to Hollywood, which he said was a "great but very troubled place.' But it remains unclear what they have achieved so far. "They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK - BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!' he wrote at the time. Nouvelle Vague. chronicles the making of Jean-Luc Godard's debut 1960 classic Breathless, which starred Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo as star-crossed lovers in Paris. Zoey Deutch, who plays Seberg in the film, said at the Cannes press conference that 'it would be nice to make more movies in Los Angeles.' 'The history and the studios and the culture and the crews, it would be so beautiful,' she said. 'I just finished doing a movie there and it was magical in the same way that Paris is magical and has this history. I would love for there to be more movies in Los Angeles.' Linklater agreed, adding that he 'really admires' the French for 'taking care' of their film industry. 'They make sure it's healthy and they nurture it and they help it. The government, everyone is all in,' he said. 'From production to distribution, they care. And our country, the U.S., could use a little bit of that.'
Business Mayor
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
Ban this foreign filth! Can cinema really threaten national security?
A s always with pronouncements by President Trump, once you had peeled away the xenophobia, removed the stew of resentment, ignored the sheer idiocy and asterisked the possible illegality, there was a small kernel of truth to his posting on Truth Social last Sunday. 'The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,' he wrote, pointing to the nefarious tax breaks other countries gave film-makers as 'a National Security threat' and proposing an 100% tariff on films made oversees. 'It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA AGAIN!' How would a 100% tariff on films made oversees work? Just movies shot overseas? What about movies set overseas? And who would pay? How do you impose tariffs on goods without a port of entry? 'Commerce is figuring it out,' said a White House official. In fact, movies are listed as an exception to presidential authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president authority to address national security threats, so it is likely the lawyers would end up figuring it out, if Trump's plan went ahead. But, many executives in Hollywood are quietly nodding agreement. It is true that Los Angeles has seen feature movie shoot days plummet from 3,901 in 2017 to just 2,403 in 2024, a 38% drop. Many major franchises such as Avatar and Mission: Impossible are shot mostly overseas, where the lure of lucrative tax breaks offset such minor inconveniences as the incursion of some Derbyshire sheep into one of Tom Cruise's paragliding set-pieces. Clear the sheep and go again … Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Photograph: Credit: Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures/Allstar Whether Ethan Hunt's jaunts around the Lake District represent a legitimate national security threat – as opposed to, say, including sensitive war plans in a group chat – is best left to historians. Trump's vision of Maga cinema is much like his vision of Maga America: an attempt to turn back the clock to the 1950s, when movies were still shot on a Hollywood backlot, cinema attendance was at its peak and the US flooded countries, whose previously quota-restricted film industries had been devastated by war, with American films, as part of the Marshall plan. 'What we are in fact attempting to do in Europe is to create a Marshall plan of ideas,' wrote political journalist Walter Lippmann in The Cold War: A Study in US Foreign Policy (1947). 'We have created a new Athens, a celluloid Athens, in which films and ideas about freedom, democracy, and self-determination are broadcast to all the world.' Read More Disney needs new ideas from its cast of in-activist investors As usual, Trump is playing his victor-as-victim card. We're used to hearing protectionist cries from smaller countries protesting America's cinematic hegemony – not the other way around. 'We will become a cultural colony of the United States if this goes on,' said director René Clair after France signed the Blum-Byrnes agreement in 1946, which cleared some of France's war debt in return for opening up French cinemas to American films. In 1993, when Spielberg's Jurassic Park stormed into 450 cinemas – a quarter of the country's 1,800 total – French culture minister Jacques Toubon declared the movie 'a threat to French national identity' and claimed that it was every Frenchman's 'patriotic duty' to, instead, see Germinal, an adaptation of Émile Zola's novel about the 19th-century coalminers starring Gérard Depardieu. Arriving as the general agreement on tariffs and trade talks got under way, Jurassic Park became a political football with which 'to confront, with renewed muscle, the yankosaurs who menace our country' as Libération put it. 'We cannot allow the Americans to treat us in the way they dealt with the redskins,' director Bertrand Tavernier told the European parliament. A political football … Joseph Mazzello, Laura Dern and Sam Neill in Jurassic Park. Photograph: Universal/Allstar Dressing up soft power incursions as hard power threats may, at times, seem irresistible, but there's a wide gulf between 'perceived national security threats' and 'actual national security threats'. Trump's proposal to make American films great again would lump the US together with such isolationist, authoritarian states as China and Iran. When Avatar proved wildly popular to Chinese audiences in 2010, it was pulled early from theatres to make room for a biopic of Confucius, after officials fretted its themes of resistance to imperialism could stoke unrest. In Iran, last month, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, the directors of the gentle romance My Favourite Cake, whose heroine is shown without a headscarf, were sentenced to 14 months in prison on charges of 'spreading lies with the intention of disturbing public opinion'. The national security apparatus of the state makes for a notoriously poor film critic. When Soviet authorities allowed John Ford's adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1940) into cinemas on the basis that it showed the suffering of a poor American farming family during the Great Depression, one audience member reportedly remarked: 'They may have been poor, but at least they had a truck.' It's important to remember that, though France attempted to restage the Battle of Little Bighorn over the influx of Hollywood movies in 1946, they lost and the result was the French New Wave, as directors like Truffaut, Godard, Rivette and Chabrol played catchup with the sudden glut of American movies, and fashioned their own homegrown counterpoint. 'What switched me to films was the flood of American pictures into Paris after the Liberation,' said Truffaut who, between 1946 and 1956, watched more than 3,000 films by the likes of Welles, Hitchcock and Ford, that had gathered dust during the Nazi occupation. Movies have always been an international medium and market, and are only getting more so. Jurassic Park may have smushed Germinal at the box office – $1bn to $6m – but 1993 marked another important watershed, as Hollywood's foreign revenue outstripped domestic revenue for the first time in its history. Today, international markets account for more than 70% of Hollywood's box office revenue. Ironically, Hollywood is one of the few places where the US does not see one of Trump's dreaded trade deficits. According to the Motion Picture Association, the industry enjoys a $15.3bn trade surplus, and with that surplus has come an undeniable softening of the amount of American flag-waving we see on screen. A rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner was removed from Toy Story 2. Bohemian Rhapsody had some of its queerness toned down for the Chinese market. Producers of Top Gun: Maverick removed Taiwan's flag from Maverick's bomber jacket, to appease China's censors, but, after one of the film's Chinese backers, Tencent, pulled out, it was put back, at least for the version that showed in Taiwan. 'Mercilessly destroy anyone' … James Franco and Seth Rogen in The Interview. Photograph: Ed Araquel/AP You can't enjoy cinematic dominance over other countries and brandish insensitivity to their respective cultures. Hence the pusillanimity that overcame Sony Pictures, after Seth Rogen and James Franco's 2014 comedy The Interview, about two bumbling journalists who end up involved in a CIA plot to kill Kim Jong-un, precipitated a threat from the North Korean government to 'mercilessly destroy anyone who dares hurt or attack the supreme leadership of the country even a bit'. After Sony Pictures' computers were hacked, and sensitive emails between its executives dumped online, Sony backed down and withdrew the film from release, while another North Korea-set comedy, Pyongyang, about an American accused of spying in the country, was quietly ditched by its production company, New Regency. The film's star, Steve Carell, tweeted that it was a 'sad day for creative expression'. Read More Craft Media appoints Media Week Podcast host head of planning Is this what Trump means by 'messaging and propaganda'? Given his fondness for Kim Jong-un and his dislike of queerness, probably not, but the idea of secret messaging that American films are forced to carry if they shoot overseas would appear to be another of Trump's bogeymen. 'I've produced or overseen hundreds of movies that were shot overseas, even built studios in Australia and Mexico for that purpose,' responded Bill Mechanic, CEO of Pandemonium Films and the executive who oversaw the shoot of James Cameron's Titanic in Mexico and Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge in Australia. 'Other than China, which offered rigid co-production terms, no foreign government has ever even commented on any political content in any of those movies. None has ever asked for any changes, and never proposed a single idea.' James Cameron's Titanic would have sunk without trace with the proposed tariff. Photograph: 20TH CENTURY FOX/Allstar Neither Titanic nor Hacksaw Ridge, needless to say, would have survived Trump's proposed tariffs. It's hard to see how so blunt a stick as 100% tariffs would serve to roll back the irreversible forces of globalisation. The way to get production back into the US is incentivise film-makers with tax breaks, not threaten them with tariffs. The most likely effect of tariffs would be to choke what little life remains in the already embattled business of theatrical distribution, annihilate the indie sector, render most low- to mid-budget productions unfinanceable and even dent the big blockbusters such as Mission: Impossible, as studios recalibrate their profit margins. It would result in fewer movies being made in the US, not more. But it's doubtful whether helping Hollywood was indeed the aim. A believer in free markets, except when he isn't, Trump has already started to walk back his ludicrous proposal, with the White House saying that 'no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made'. Hollywood is not going back to the All-American 1950s anytime soon. The 'celluloid Athens' proclaimed by Walter Lippmann is now more like a celluloid Constantinople – increasingly international, plural, connected. 'The world is listening,' ran the motto of George Lucas's THX Dolby system. Yes, but the world is also speaking now. It's Hollywood's turn to listen.
New Paper
07-05-2025
- Sport
- New Paper
May 8 South Africa (Turffontein) form analysis
Race 1 (1,450m) (4) GULF OF AMERICA and (7) JAPANESE GARDEN stayed on well in a winners' race on debut over 1,160m and both would have benefited from that experience. (2) BOLD ACTION and (9) OPERA FAN have the form and experience to play leading roles, too. Watch the betting on well-bred newcomer (3) FAIR PROPOSAL. Race 2 (1,450m) (1) CHRONICLE KING ran second on debut over track and trip behind a subsequent winner. Can go one better with that experience to count on. (8) SCARLETT HEART can be competitive, especially in receipt of a sex allowance. Recently gelded (6) ROYALE JACKET is best judged on his debut performance. Watch the betting on imported youngster (7) TASKMASTER. Race 3 (1,200m) (7) EIGHT HATS will be hard to beat if she takes her place in this. (2) GENOVEFA and (6) RENDEVOUS IN RIO have shown enough to trouble the selection, although well-bred newcomer (10) RACHEL WALL need not be special to also make her presence felt. Race 4 (1,600m) (1) ART NOUVEAU and (3) SHAMOON have the form and experience to play leading roles but are vulnerable to less-exposed rivals. (2) NKWENKWEZI would not be winning out of turn and need not improve much in first-time blinkers to open her account. (9) ETHICAL ran an improved third against males last time and remains open to further progress. (8) REFLECTIVE did not go unnoticed on debut. Has a say. Race 5 (2,000m) (8) KUDZU scored in his only 2,000m appearance and is good value to preserve that 100 per cent record over this distance. (10) TOTAL SURRENDER is weighted to be competitive, especially in first-time blinkers. (5) STAR COIN has a good record over this trip. Keep safe. (9) CLAW, (12) FETCHING FLYER and (13) JORDAN have each-way chances. Race 6 (1,450m) (4) SAIL THE SKY was rewarded for consistency with a last-start success at a higher level. However, it is worth noting that Gavin Lerena gets off that runner to ride (5) CALL ME MASTER. (1) AFTER HOURS and (2) CALIDA have the form and experience at this level to do well. Race 7 (1,450m) (2) NIGHT BOMBER finished behind (6) BOB'S YOUR UNCLE before beating (9) PRESSONREGARDLESS, (8) BIOFARMER and (4) MAX THE MAGICIAN last time. There should be little separating the quintet on the revised weight terms. (12) PLUS FOUR landed a betting coup over this track and trip on his Highveld debut. Another bold showing is on the cards. Race 8 (1,450m) (1) WARNING SOUND fluffed her lines last time in a stronger race but would have benefited from a subsequent 15-week absence. (5) GREGARIOUS fits a similar profile and will likely fight for victory with progress expected. (2) QUANTUM, (3) RATTLE BAG and (7) ANNEWITHAN E have the form and experience to be competitive. Race 9 (1,450m) (2) SATYAGRAHA made it start-to-finish to win over track and trip last time. It should pay to follow his progress. (1) WILLOW EXPRESS is proven at this level and has the means to play a leading role, despite conceding weight to all. Last-start winners (4) KING OF NUMBERS and (9) SUPER AWESOME remain competitive, while unexposed (8) CARS BIG AS BARS is not underestimated.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
California Democrats bash Trump's foreign-film tariffs: ‘Nonsensical'
California Democrats are hammering President Trump's recent proposal to slap new tariffs on foreign-made films. The lawmakers are warning that, if it's imposed, Trump's 100 percent levy would simply result in higher costs for movie consumers in the United States. 'This is just nonsensical,' Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), chair of the House Democratic Caucus, told reporters Tuesday in the Capitol. 'There are things that we can do to increase production [and encourage] the film industry to film in the United States,' he continued. 'We should be looking at those ideas and strategies, not reckless tariffs that will cost people jobs and raise costs for Americans.' Trump announced his new tariff proposal Sunday night on Truth Social, saying the incentives other countries provide to attract filmmakers pose a national security threat. The policy change, he said, would revive a domestic movie industry that's dying 'a very fast death.' 'Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,' he wrote in the post. 'It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!' he added. 'Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!' Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), who represents parts of Los Angeles, joined Aguilar in bashing the proposal as short-sighted, saying it would damage the industry it purports to save. Lieu said the more effective strategy would be tax incentives designed to entice filmmakers to do their work in the United States — a concept he had championed when he was a member of California's state Legislature. 'Donald Trump didn't appear to have talked to anyone about the 100 percent tariff on foreign movies — it just seems like another random idea that he put out there with no thought about how it would actually be implemented. Because if it was implemented, it would increase consumer costs on movies,' Lieu said. 'Also, it would just make some movies really far less interesting,' Lieu added. 'If 'All Quiet on the Western Front' had to be renamed 'All Quiet on the U.S. Side of the Canadian Border' — [that's a] much less interesting movie. So there's just no thought behind what Donald Trump is doing with his indiscriminate tariffs.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
