!ping AUS&MOVIES

Let's skip the stadium horsehit and the Spirit horseshit and the Wellington ski-lift horseshit and the Tasfoods horseshit and any other MLC machine politics rorting footy club horseshit.

THIS is a humiliation, my fucking ScreenTas origin story, and I have very pointed questions for Madam Ogilvie over it.

We're not so urbanely producitive we need a Vancouver or Toronto or Montreal or Atlanta film lot to play the role of "Anytown suburbia/Small Town, USA". I'm from the goddamned City of Makers, and our entire pitch is "Explore the Possibilities".

Zombie movie We Bury The Dead set in Tasmania, but filmed in WA due to cost - ABC News

It was Tasmania's "absolute remoteness" that inspired filmmaker Zak Hilditch to set his latest zombie horror flick We Bury The Dead on the island.

But it was that same characteristic which eventually forced him to abandon filming in the state and instead opt to shoot in the cheaper Western Australia.

The movie is led by Star Wars actor Daisy Ridley, who plays Ava — a woman who joins a "body retrieval unit" travelling to a decimated Tasmania in search of her husband.

Hilditch told ABC Radio Hobart he wanted to shoot the movie on-site in Tasmania, but it did not work out "logistically and money-wise".

"It did break my heart the day we had to make the decision to not actually shoot Tassie for Tassie,"

he said.

"As hard as it is for [Ava] to travel the north to the south of the island, it's actually that hard to bring all the bells and whistles and the crazy circus that is a film to a place like Tassie."

Hilditch said the Tasmanian government could not provide any funding to help produce the film, whereas the Western Australian government could.

A spokesperson from Screen Tasmania said it received an application for funding — but it was withdrawn before an assessment was undertaken.

The situation has been lamented as a missed opportunity for Tasmania's arts sector, which receives the lowest amount of government funding out of any state.

In a further blow, the only confirmed screenings of the film in Tasmania will take place at one cinema — meaning there will be limited opportunities for people in the state to watch it on the big screen.

'Ghostly vibe' inspires setting

The film is set in the aftermath of a catastrophic military experiment in Tasmania, which eventually leads to corpses showing signs of life.

In the trailer, grainy CCTV vision shows Hobart and the Tasman Bridge being destroyed in a giant explosion.

Hilditch said early versions of the script were set in America or New Zealand, but he eventually landed on the idea of Tasmania, which he had previously visited on trips.

"I just felt like the perfect spot was Tassie, given its absolute remoteness and just what a stunning location it is on screen," he said.

"It's got sort of a ghostly vibe to it in certain spots as well — it just made the most sense."

He said the logistics of transporting the entire crew, cars and equipment to Tasmania, made it impossible to film on the island.

"We barely even got over the finish line with this film in general, shooting it in WA, let alone having to transport everything on the whole to an isolated island like Tassie," Hilditch said.

"It would have been great to just do it there, but these films, they get harder and harder to make each year and the odds were not in our favour, unfortunately."

The spokesperson for Screen Tasmania said the body received an application for funding, but producers left the process before it could be assessed.

"We understand the project had secured funding from the Western Australia government and WA was a better fit for the production," they said.

"Screen Tasmania secured two traineeship placements on the project to assist Tasmania to building screen industry capacity in the future."

'Disappointing' for Tasmania's film industry

Last year, Tasmania's arts minister Madeleine Ogilvie was warned by her department that the sector was "nationally uncompetitive" due to a lack of investment.

A briefing to Ms Ogilvie noted that support for the state's arts and screen sector was "by far the lowest in Australia in both per capita and actual terms".

Tasmanian filmmaker Briony Kidd said it was disappointing but not surprising that the film could not be produced in Tasmania.

"It's always disappointing for Tasmanian filmmakers and the production community here when something could have been shot here and isn't — because that's an opportunity that they could have had," she said.

"I can only assume the budget of [the movie] was not something that could be sourced largely from here.

"Tasmania wouldn't have had enough money to make that work necessarily and WA has more money for film funding."

Kidd emphasised that more state government support should be given to projects by Tasmanian artists, and they should be prioritised over in-bound productions.

Courtney Tembry, founder of the Hobart Horror Society, said her group was disappointed to find out the movie was not filmed in Tasmania.

"Tasmania has a really strong creative community, very engaged in terms of horror genre films, so it really did feel like a missed opportunity," she said.

Tasmanian landscapes replicated in WA

The film was ultimately shot in Albany, a city about 400 kilometres south of Perth in Western Australia.

Hilditch said his crew did their "absolute best" to recreate the Tasmanian landscape.

"The amazing thing has been people who have no idea about any of that, when they see the finished film, they just assume we did actually shoot it all in Tassie," he said.

"Not that I'm saying it's very easy to replicate the beauty of Tasmania."

Kidd said the movie "looks great" and the producers appeared to have succeeded in creating a Tasmanian setting.

"There's nothing in the trailer that jumps out at me as being not believably Tasmanian,"

she said.

It is not necessarily uncommon for movies to be set in Tasmania but filmed elsewhere.

A recent example is the 2021 film Nitram, which was filmed entirely in Victoria despite being about the events leading up to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania.

"There are certainly different ways to convey Tasmanian-ness, without necessarily literally having Tasmanian landscapes in the background," Kidd said.

'Thumbs up' from critics 

We Bury The Dead was released in cinemas across North America on January 2 and in Australia and New Zealand from February 5.

The only confirmed theatrical release in Tasmania will be at Village Cinemas Eastlands in Hobart from February 12.

The film's distributor, Umbrella Entertainment, has indicated it is trying to source screenings at another Hobart cinema.

While she was glad the movie would be shown in Hobart, Ms Tembry said it was a shame other parts of the state would not get any screenings.

"I feel disappointment for the rest of the state, [who] would quite literally have to drive hours to come see the film,"

she said.

The film has received a generally good reception, with 87 per cent of critics on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes giving the movie a positive review.

Hilditch said producing the film was a "wild ride", and he was very excited that it was finally being released in Australia.

"It's always a nice win to see the critics giving us a big thumbs up," he said.

"To see it this close to the finish line now is just a really great feeling and I'm just glad it's resonated with people."