If you’re going to make a documentary about the current state of the Australian film industry, you’re going to have to include an interview with Richard Wolstencroft, the director of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival and an Australian filmmaker himself.

This is exactly what co-directors Andrew Scarano and Phil Hignett have done. Their film is called Into the Shadows and they’re still in production on it, but they’ve posted up short excerpts from several of their interviews, one of which is Wolstencroft. This is a guy who is great for a soundbite based on a few interviews I’ve seen with him, as well as somebody who is very passionate about Australian film, which he doesn’t think too highly right now.

Since I’ve been covering MUFF the past couple years on the Underground Film Journal, I’ve been intrigued about how the Australian film industry works. It’s not something I can quite wrap my head around since most of it is funded by the government and there’s that strange set-up (by American standards) of films playing at a film festival needing a government-issued rating to be screened. Into the Shadows sounds like an interesting project and can hopefully shed some light on these issues.

Also, after watching the below video, please be sure to go visit Wolstencroft’s new blog Idea Fix. Richard has proven to be quite adept at blogging. Normally when you hear about people starting a blog these days, you get one post every three weeks usually about how there’s nothing to write about. Not Richard. He blabs on about all sorts of interesting subjects on a very regular basis and it’s a fun read that I check out often.