A new report penned by Nick Hayes, CEO of Independent Cinemas Australia and veteran of the Australian screen sector, has analysed an array of challenges currently facing the Australian screen and cinema industry, including a perceived ‘misalignment’ between produced films and their intended audiences.
The report, subtitled ‘Made, Not Seen: The Misalignment of Australian Film, Cinema, and Audiences’ argues that Australian screen content is currently missing significant targets, leading to a notable downturn of audience engagement with Australian-made projects.
New report analyses challenges facing Australian screen sector – quick links
The challenges of releasing Australian screen content into the world
Analysing the current output of Australian producers, Hayes noted a significant push and support for film releases, but one without the typically robust coordination for planning, marketing, audience positioning, or ‘sensible’ release timing.
He posits that while an array of artful, moving, and beautiful films are produced in Australia, the focus currently appears to be on quantity of production and seeing films through to release, without consideration for their impact or results.
‘Australian screen policy has been built around getting films made but not around ensuring they can reliably reach the public,’ Hayes says.
‘The system funds development and production, provides significant tax support through the Producer Offset, and reports on projects completed. But it does not adequately fund, protect, coordinate or measure the conditions that allow Australian films to be seen.’
One of the biggest challenges, according to Hayes, is that Australian screen projects tend to be ‘concentrated in a narrow range’ with many supported projects being adult dramas or documentary, while wide-appeal genres like family, comedy, animation, youth, and genre film remains ‘under-supplied’.
When Australia films do release, Hayes notes they tend to be ‘released into crowded or commercially hostile windows’ and they are ‘not always supported by marketing assets that cinemas can use with confidence’.
To better align current infrastructure around the screen industry, Hayes is calling for significant change, particularly in how film is supported, how cinemas are seen, and how data is used to determine the future of screen projects.
‘Government can see how many films were funded, how much was spent and how many projects were completed,’ Hayes says.
‘It cannot consistently see how many Australians saw those films in cinemas, where they played, how long they ran, how many sessions they received, whether marketing was release-ready, or whether public funding translated into public experience.’
Changes to Australian public policy have seemingly had a negative impact on the cinema industry
Hayes points to Australian Goverment public policy changes between 2007 and 2008 as the critical misstep that allegedly forced Australian’s screen output ‘out of alignment’ with its core audience.
This screen-policy reset delivered an array of structural changes to Australia’s screen industry. It brought in Screen Australia and introduced a new Producer Offset, while also paving the way for increased production output via funding and greater support for creatives.
Hayes’ report found that Australian feature output increased by 132% following the 2007-2008 reset. Despite this increase in production, it appears cinema admissions to Australian films fell by around 60%, and average box office per Australian film fell by around 58%.
‘We are making more Australian films than ever before, but far fewer Australians are seeing each one,’ Hayes says. ‘This is not an audience indifference problem. It is a policy design problem.’
With this data, Hayes points to that alleged misalignment, suggesting that while Australian screen growth is valuable, ‘In blunt terms, we are too often making the wrong films for the audience we say we want to reach.’
Hayes is not calling for fewer films to be funded overall, but for policy changes to aid production of more diverse, better-rounded features that serve the needs and desires of their intended audience, and are largely more appealing to cinema-going audiences.
‘If the national slate is structurally thin in particular genres, classifications or audience pathways, policy should say so directly,’ Hayes says.
‘Producers should not have to reverse-engineer strategic intent from lukewarm guidance. They should be told plainly where the gaps are and invited to meet them. A system that knows it is under-supplying children’s films, family films youth titles, and broadly accessible local work should not behave as though this remains a matter of mystery or taste.’
‘Clarity would not diminish creative freedom. It would improve strategic honesty.’
What reforms are suggested to better align Australia’s screen output
Within the report, Hayes makes a number of suggestions to fix perceived gaps in Australia’s screen content slate, and the types of projects currently being supported to release.
Strategic honesty is a guiding principle, with Hayes calling on more public data to be available to producers, to make better informed decisions about their next projects. He has also called on funding bodies to make sharper and more informed choices by supporting an array of projects, rather than mostly those within narrow bounds, like adult drama and documentary.
‘The consequence of this concentration is not simply a commercial shortfall,’ Hayes says. ‘When local production clusters within a narrow dramatic range, the capacity of national cinema to reflect the full diversity of Australian life is constrained.’
‘Genre is not merely a storytelling choice. It is a signalling mechanism that shapes audience expectation, marketing clarity, session density and persistence over time.’
As noted, opening the slate will have economic benefits, as well as creative. Australian horror and thriller titles ‘consistently perform at or above their proportional share of output,’ per the report.
Family films also reportedly ‘demonstrate strong audience response relative to their scarcity, as do comedy films when ‘tonal clarity and marketing alignment are present’.
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Hayes suggests change must begin at a policy point, with new national standards to help support a diverse film slate to reach audiences across Australia. He suggests there must be integration of audience metrics into funding programs and cultural policy, an overhaul of marketing support for cinema, and structural reform for more sustainable jobs within the industry.
What a cinema renewal project could look like
One of the more ambitious recommendations is for a new National Exhibition Renewal Program, which is designed to support and stabilise Australia’s cinema network, recognising cinemas as essential cultural infrastructure, and a meeting point for people of all ages. Most importantly, these spaces are where many people will discover Australian cinema.
The program is based on a simple principle: ‘If federal funds support screen production, they carry an obligation to ensure Australians can access those stories in cinemas.’
The suggested program would be supported by a national fund for digital projection and server replacement, sound upgrades, accessibility works and energy-efficiency improvements, with a phased investment of $40 million per year in the first two years, and $20 million per year for three years after.
This would also align with a proposed 12-film Australian theatrical slate, which suggests ‘one Australian theatrical feature released each month, aligned to priority genres and committed to defined release windows’.
According to Hayes, this would allow the system to make films audiences need, when they need them, and for these films to be supported properly, without being crowded out by other major releases.
‘What is proposed here is not less ambition, but greater coherence,’ Hayes says. ‘Not fewer films, but clearer purpose. Not nostalgia for an early cinema economy, but a contemporary policy framework that recognises how audiences actually live, choose and gather.’
‘If public funding is to justify itself culturally, economically and politically, it must do more than support the making of work. It must help ensure that work reaches Australians in meaningful ways, in places that remain visible, shared and public.’
‘The reboot does not ask for more money for production. It asks for responsibility,’ Hayes says. ‘Responsibility for audiences. Responsibility for access. Responsibility for outcomes.’
You can read the full Made, Not Seen report and its accompanying data here.
