There were nine graduating students’ films in the class of 2008 run by Teaching Fellow Judy Hamilton.  Red Terror, a drama, won production design, direction (Joel Jonnson), sound (Paul Browning), and tied for most popular audience film. 

A low budget feature film written, produced and directed by Bond University Film and Television graduates, has become an unlikely international success.  Kill Buljo, a parody of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, is the brainchild of Bond University Film and Television alumnus Tommy Wirkola who co-wrote and co-produced the film in Norway.

The privately funded, $250,000 feature film has had its distribution rights for the USA, UK and Australia picked up by independent American film studio The Weinstein Co, whose releases also include Hollywood hits Miss Potter, Hannibal Rising and Transamerica.

Kill Buljo has now sold to more than 20 countries including Japan, Poland, Turkey, Germany, Thailand, the Benelux countries, France, Brazil, Israel, Romania, South Africa, Russia, the Baltic states, Spain, Bulgaria and Portugal.

"It is almost surreal to imagine that the film will be seen all over the world, when I think of how small it was, and how we started," Tommy said.

"I'm really looking forward to seeing it dubbed into Japanese and Russian. And the fact that the Weinsteins bought it for the English-speaking territories is great, because that means that Quentin Tarantino will get a chance to see it," he said.

Bond Film and Television student Liv Ask, who worked as production designer on the film, said it felt very surreal to have their ‘little film’ picked up.

Liv was one of eight Bond students (former and current) who worked on the film in Norway from April – July last year.

The group first met at Bond University where they worked together on short-films Hansel and Gretel Witch-Hunters and Stealing Candy during their studies at the University’s Centre for Film, Television and Screen Based Media.

"Tommy was the year ahead of me at uni but we had worked on a few projects together and stayed in touch after he graduated.

"Early last year he asked me if I wanted to come and work as production designer on this feature called Kill Buljo that he’d been working on a script for.

"It was a great opportunity to broaden my work experience so I decided to defer my studies at Bond for a year and went to Norway for two-and-a-half months for the filming."

Liv joined the cast and crew, including eight other ‘Bondies’, in the small community of Alta, in northern Norway, where they stayed together in dorms.

"The people were so supportive and friendly, giving us a lot of stuff for the set, lending us their vehicles for transport and the locations we filmed at were mostly free," she said.

"It was the first full feature film for most of us, so it was tough, crazy, and a lot of fun.

"If something didn’t work, we made it work. It wasn’t a typical nine-to-five job. In Norway, the sun is up for 22 hours a day, so a lot of the time we were working without knowing whether it was morning or afternoon.

"There was a lot of improvisation. We were on a really tight schedule so we learnt to work fast and make quick decisions," Liv said.

The hard work paid off, with Kill Buljo doing remarkably well at the box office, attracting over 100,000 moviegoers and now, the attention of the world.

Off the back of their success, the group is reconvening in Norway in March next year to start work on their next feature – an ‘action/ horror/ comedy’ about Nazi zombies.

Sometimes an original idea and a love of movie-making can triumph in the face of the big bucks and prestige of Hollywood.

At Professor Robert Stable's annual Staff Christmas function on December 7, he presented his Vice-Chancellor's Quality Awards to recognise excellence in teaching, research, postgraduate supervision, and outstanding service. Two awards went to Humanities and Social Sciences staff:

International Relations Associate Professor Dr Rosita Dellios, for postgraduate supervision 

Criminology Assistant Professor Dr Wayne Petherick (pictured centre), for teaching Excellence, sharing the award with Associate Professor Terry Gygar (left) of the Law Faculty.

Winner of the 2007 Bond University Film and Television Awards (BUFTAs) scholarship, to study a Bachelor of Film and TV, was James Base of Melbourne for his comedy submission of Frequency. James scooped top honours at these 11th annual BUFTAs, winning a full tuition scholarship, valued at almost $75,000, which he will take up after he graduates from high school at the end of 2008.

Milena Stojceska, 17, from Merrimac State High School, Gold Coast, and Jack Campbell, 18, from Inverell High, NSW, are the 2008 winners of the John Burton cadet scholarship - a partnership between Bond University and The Gold Coast Bulletin.

Bond University Bachelor of Multimedia and Bachelor of Computer Games students have taken their first steps toward working in the digital media industries with two important industry linkages - taking part in quality testing a new Auran studios game called Fury, and visiting another digital media company.

The Faculty's Christmas function, organised by Executive Support Officer (Events) Anoushka Douglas, was held at the Gold Coast theme park Dreamworld.  Two of the attraction's Bengal tigers went through their paces, then after food and drinks the Dean, Prof. Raoul Mortley, acknowledged staff who have been with Humanities and Social Sciences or with BUELI for more than 15 years.

Pictures from the night are included in the print-friendly pdf version of this newsletter.

Bond student Justine Ebenreuter and her supervisor, Prof. Richard Hicks, gave papers at the sixth Australian Conference on Personality and Individual Differences at Sydney's Macquarie University this month.

Alicia Vallero and Debborah Smith attended the Independent Learning Association Conference at Kanda University of International Studies, Chiba, Japan.  Conference theme was: “Exploring theory, enhancing practice: Autonomy across the disciplines”.

Bond Journalism graduate Kyrrie Blenkinsop has emailed her former lecturers Prof. Mark Pearson and Assoc. Prof. Roger Patching that life in Darwin is great:  "I'm loving the court rounds at Channel 9," she writes.