Mockbuster, an Australian documentary that dives into the eccentric, corner-cutting filmmaking culture of legendary Burbank B-movie The Asylum, is getting its American Film Market launch courtesy of Giant Pictures, which is bringing the film to buyers at the AFM this week. (Check out the exclusive teaser below).
The film made its world premiere at last month’s Adelaide Film Festival, where it picked up the Audience Award for Feature Documentary, before Umbrella boarded the title for Australia and New Zealand.
Directed by Anthony Frith, Mockbuster follows the filmmaker as he attempts a double act: Directing a new Asylum production — the low-budget lost world dinosaur movie, The Land That Time Forgot, shot over six days in suburban Adelaide — while simultaneously documenting the absurdist, pressure-cooker environment surrounding the making of the mockbuster.
Once a rising filmmaker, Frith pitched himself to the company in a last-ditch bid to revive his career. Against all odds, The Asylum agreed, setting off a production marked by rubber dinosaurs, overnight rewrites and a cast attempting to stay upright amid the chaos.
Frith’s camera captures the familiar orbit of Asylum founders David Rimawi, David Latt and Paul Bales, along with producer Brendan Petrizzo. Bales, newly elected chair of the Independent Film & Television Alliance, offers one of the trailer’s more concise assessments of the company’s reputation: “At our company, we make shitty movies. We’re barely above porn.”
The Asylum’s improbable quarter century run — defined by opportunistic “mockbusters,” improbable genre franchises and the viral success of Sharknado — provides the film’s broader backdrop. Mockbuster positions the studio less as an industry curiosity than as a strangely durable business operation built on controlled chaos, caffeinated improvisation and a willingness to say yes where others won’t.
Giant Pictures is presenting the title to buyers at AFM, with Nick Savva and Bill Sondheim handling sales on the ground. Savva, who acquired the film and serves as executive producer, is joined by fellow executive producers David Farrier, Madeleine Schumacher, Alex West, Ty Morse, Phil Laboon, Ari Harrison and Cam Rogers. The documentary is produced by Mostly True Media and Walking Fish Productions, with backing from Screen Australia, the South Australian Film Corporation, the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund, VicScreen, KOJO Studios, Green Marble Productions and Time Horse Productions.
Check out the teaser for ‘Mockbusters’ below.
