Australia can only make short films...Thoughts?

This is a pretty harsh statement, even by my standards, and I apologize for being so blunt, but its a saying I've been hearing quite frequently over the past few weeks and I thought it was about time I did some research into the background of such a comment.

In Australia, there are very few places Aussie films can get noticed. The box office is almost always consumed by the latest American blockbuster; the internet is filled with crap from every corner of the globe; and TV, whilst increasing its Australian content somewhat, still only really does it to fulfill guidelines ("The ACS requires all commercial free-to-air television licensees to broadcast an annual minimum transmission quota of 55 per cent Australian programming between 6am and midnight.") So where do our Aussie films screen then? The following list is a full compilation of Australia's more successful film festivals held each year in the country:

1. Melbourne International Film Festival
2. Sydney Film Festival
3. Dungog Film Festival
4. Adelaide Film Festival
5. Flickerfest
6. Tropfest
7. St Kilda Film Festival
8. Bondi Film Festival

Of these, four are dedicated purely to short films and of the remaining four, Australian films have to compete heavily with international films as well as local productions. This makes it extremely hard for these festivals to be considered avenues for distribution whereas the entrance requirements for the short film festivals are much easier; it makes sense therefore, to produce a short film that may actually have a chance of being shown somewhere than a feature that may not be shown anywhere.

As well as this, the pure and simple explanation for why Australians only produce short films is because of money. A good short can be made on a budget of about $30,000; a feature needs at least 10 times that amount, money the industry just does not have. And with government funding becoming more and more difficult to ascertain, the likelihood of a filmmaker gathering enough of those funds to produce a feature is diminishing, causing them to return to the short form which they can afford to make.

Why say Australians are only good at making short films? If you look at any Australian film recently released, you'll notice a clear similarity between them all. Visually striking, well-thought-out characters set amongst your typical Australian backdrop, we start out well. Give it 10 minutes, and we lose the plot: cause and effect start to drift apart; plot holes emerge; characters act out of sync with their established personalities; and if it's a genre film, there are probably a few too many scenes which fit the pre-established norm set out by some international film made 10 years earlier. Then we reach the denouement (which normally begins 10 minutes before the film's conclusion with Australian films, as if we're in a race for the finish) and we start to shape up a little bit better (save for Sleeping Beauty). The 10-minute rule seems to stick with us a little too close and it can only be attributed to one thing - we are taught well how to produce great shorts but when it comes to features, we haven't got a clue what we're doing.

A thought that came into my head the other day was the idea that a film school enrols students into 1st year in which they spend all year in pre-production; then they head into second year where they produce their scripts from 1st year; and finally, in the final year, they commence post-production and get into some serious marketing and distribution work, in the hope that the film is viable enough to be released after graduation. All in the feature film form. Obviously you're taking a risk with this and it would obviously be costly but that's why you have students pay $20,000 a year to be taught by the best Australian and international feature filmmakers on how to make great films, with that $20,000 going towards tutoring and funding for the films. A girl can dream.

Aside from that though, I'd love any thoughts on the comments above. I know its a contentious issue and I don't mean to insult but when we have an industry that can barely get a film to make more than $30,000 on opening weekends, we know we have a serious problem. Maybe this is one of them; maybe not. Tell me your thoughts if you don't/do agree.