Motorkite Dreaming.
New distribution start-up Screen Impact is premiering its first feature, Motorkite Dreaming, at the inaugural Hot Docs in Sydney this week.
The film follows two amateur adventurer mates and their fiancés as they complete a daring flight across 4000kms of outback Australia in ‘microlight’ aircraft, described as "a hang-glider with a lawn-mower engine".
Following festival screenings in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney, the film will tour select cinemas nationally in August.
Later in the year, a five-part television version of the film will broadcast on SBS 2 and NITV.
“Motorkite Dreaming is a new way of story-telling using a new model to bring it to audiences,” said Screen Impact founder Simon Nasht. “It will be available in many formats, for many screens, when and where people want to enjoy it.”
Screen Impact will be making the film available globally to digitally stream and download, while Red Bull will be screening the TV series on its branded internet channel globally.
“It is unusual for an independent Australian documentary to have a global release simultaneously across multiple platforms in multiple formats. It shows how technology has completely revolutionised film financing and distribution,” said Nasht.
The film’s producer is John Cherry of Intafusion Films. Executive producer is Marcus Gillezeau of Pavillion Entertainment.
Screen Impact is a recipient of funding from Screen Australia’s Enterprise Industry Program to pursue a pioneering approach to distribution that brings together the opportunities of the digital space with a grassroots approach to theatrical release.
“We have several projects coming down the pipeline where we expect to bring a global audience to films that might otherwise never make it beyond a few festival screenings,” Nasht said. “These are exciting days and its now possible for filmmakers to build a global audience of fans they can carry with them to future projects.”
“We believe the future of distribution is about breaking down the traditional release path: theatrical, SVOD and digital all have a part to play.”
Director Charlie Hill-Smith described Motorkite Dreaming as “a Trojan horse narrative; a story that smells like an adventure, but which takes audiences deep into the beautiful bush of Aboriginal Australia, opening their eyes to a culture of mind-boggling complexity and beauty.”