Jordan, Brown get together again for film fest

THE director of Two Hands and Ned Kelly, Gregor Jordan, and veteran Aussie actor Bryan Brown have teamed up again for two new collaborations, including a romantic comedy feature film.

The two are back together to promote a short film competition and are also in the midst of obtaining funding for the feature film, to be a co-production by Australia and China.

Jordan and Brown first worked on the television series Twisted Tales in the mid1990s and then teamed again a few years later for the acclaimed Australian thriller Two Hands, in which Brown starred alongside Heath Ledger.

Since then Jordan has primarily lived and worked overseas, directing movies such as Buffalo Soldiers with Joaquin Phoenix, The Informers with Billy Bob Thornton and Unthinkable with Samuel L Jackson.

He returned to Australia a couple of years ago and has been working with Brown on the romantic comedy Five Spice, as well as the Open Road Film Festival, a short film competition with a twist.

Jordan has provided the ending to the film noir thriller The Queen of Hearts for the festival and entrants must make a six minute beginning to the movie, which has a Harley-Davidson theme.

‘‘It’s a pretty interesting

exercise. As

a filmmaker you are really given endless possibilities trying to create a film,’’ Jordan says.

‘‘Having something where you define the parameters to a certain extent and then get a bunch of filmmakers to see what they come up with is fascinating.’’

Entrants can upload their six-minute beginnings at openroadfilmfestival.com from Monday and films can be submitted until October 17.

Jordan says he and Brown have been working on Five Spice for the past couple of years and hope to begin shooting next year.

‘‘We’ve been on a couple of trips over to Shanghai and the script is in pretty good shape,’’ he says.