Quest for Jackie Chan and Urban Action Forum

I attended the Urban Action Film Forum on Saturday. I am a big fan of Jackie, and the crew putting this together. I was privileged to see this humorous action film by Andrew Thatcher, Charity Hurts, recently, and I have seen Maximum Choppage and Ali Kadhim's work too. Maria is, imho, a genius, and she has worked to bring the community together to celebrate something it can be proud of. I promise to share the gems I found there.

The Forum was a great success, and Maria ran a tight show, yet giving full reign to many important speakers who know much about action films. She achieved this by showing shortcuts of the work of those she interviewed, and then asked a few questions and allowed them to talk to the audience. It was great that Liberal councillor Zaya Toma was there, he is always showing a commitment to important community matters. Lalich was there too, possibly so he could deliver his rambling speech, confessing he knew little about the matter, having long ago enjoyed Rambo and promising nothing concrete. There was an impressive list of industry people (supplied by Marie later in this article) including Craig Anderson, Joy Hopwood, Wang Fei and Chris Pang. One important question that needs to be answered is why it is that Australia is alone in the world in not recognizing its action film people .. some great work is being done, but it is entirely boot strapping projects, not big budget. - ed
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From the Fairfield Advance.

FILMMAKER Maria Tran will bring a bit of Hollywood, via Hong Kong, to Fairfield this weekend at the launch of her multimedia project, Quest for Jackie Chan!.

Hong Kong action film director Antony Szeto will help launch the film project at the Fairfield School of Arts on Saturday, August 7.

“He heard about the project and thought it was fantastic,” Ms Tran said. “He is really interested in this kind of guerrilla filmmaking and was surprised that this all happened organically out of Fairfield.”

Quest for Jackie Chan! is a multimedia, globally-collaborated reality project that seeks to showcase and celebrate fans of the iconic martial artist and movie star Jackie Chan

It is the brainchild of Fairfield resident Maria Tran, who has spent the year gathering tales of Jackie Chan fandom from within Fairfield, across Australia and around the world.

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Marie Setiawan wrote

Last Saturday (07-08-2010) local guerilla filmmaker and good friend Maria Tran held an event: the Urban Action Film Forum, where a number of special guests arrived to join in the festivities and the discussions. Among them were Chris Pang (Tomorrow, When the War Began) and Wang Fei (Shanghai Lady Killer), but the honorary guest of the night was HK director, Antony Szeto whom has graced us with his presence. It was amazing that a small local suburb like Fairfield would be honoured to have Szeto’s company at this forum event, and to have him discuss his experiences in the film industry, especially in regards to the action genre itself.

The event held a number of guest speakers who joined Antony Szeto up on the panel, including:

• Craig Anderson, writer/director/actor of ABC TV series Double the Fist.
• Ali Khadim, local filmmaker and parkour artist of Team 9Lives.
• Warren Coulton, actor/stuntman/director/producer of shorts Yakka Oy! and The Transit, and managing director of Clear Vision Films.
• Igor Breakenback, actor/stuntman/filmmaker of upcoming film Good Luck With That, and managing director of Breakenback Films.
• Peter Castaldi, managing director of distributor Pack Screen.

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You are right about the issues Marie, but I think it extends beyond the "What are we doing wrong" to other things. I think that there is substantial talent in Fairfield/Cabramatta .. as evidenced by people like yourself, Maria, Laurent, Ali, Timothy etc etc. I think they are bootstrapping projects and are doing a great job. I don't think they are given the recognition they deserve by industry and I think there is a reason for that. I think that action films make money everywhere else in the western world, and in much of the rest, but not in Australia because of the way the industry is geared. The argument is like that of speeding. Statistics show speeding is responsible for over 90% of accidents. But police know that speeding is only responsible for some 10% of accidents. What happens is a person who is drunk and speeding and has an accident has the accident recorded as speeding when in fact the proximate cause was that they were drunk. Similarly with mechanical failure, or driver fatigue. Statistics is misleading. And so it is with the industry for movies. A lot of money is invested in reality tv, and so reality programs are shown prime time while sci fi or action shows get a 12pm time slot .. and so the ratings record large numbers for one project but not for the other. The industry claims there isn't profit in action for them .. and their statistics show the lie.
In fact, Fairfield can produce action that is family friendly and profitable. The work is already being done .. it just isn't being recognized. Maria's brilliant project has the capacity to energize the gestalt in Fairfield and Sydney .. the industry can 'discover' action films .. and so the Quest for Jackie Chan may realize much bigger fruit than one brilliant actor, and after all, isn't that Maria's expressed dream? To get the community recognized for their work. - ed.