Canberra is poised to become Australia's next movie hub

And a training course being run by Screen Canberra, the capital's peak film body, for aspiring filmmakers, writers and producers, has caught the eye of the producer of ABC's smash hit kids' show Bluey, wanting to get the drop on any new talent.

Canberra could well be on its way to becoming the country's go-to destination for filmmaking and content production.

It could even become the next "Wellywood" - a small Antipodean capital city that punches well above its weight when it comes to the movie industry.

Screen Canberra director Monica Penders is in talks this week with the New Zealand Film Commission; she travelled to Wellington as part of an ACT delegation looking to "strengthen ties" with its sister city.

The $11,500 Chief Minister's delegation was focused mainly on re-establishing direct flights between to the two cities, as Canberra continues its largely Covid-free streak.

But Ms Penders said her discussions would be around a planned training and development course there.

Speaking from Sydney Airport en route to Wellington, she said she had been fielding almost daily calls from all over the world - but mainly the United States - since Canberra played host to a stellar car chase scene in a Hollywood movie starring Liam Neeson in January.

"People have been calling saying, 'We didn't know you had a lake, we didn't know you had an observatory'. We're now one of the top locations to come and film," she said.

She will be discussing the possibility of running an extended production workshop in Wellington - an event that had been planned pre-Covid.

"Before Covid hit, we were all set to deliver a full film and TV pod in New Zealand," she said.

The five-month-long development program, Screen POD, which ran in Canberra in 2019 and 2020, is designed to help writers and producers to develop and market-test screen projects with strong commercial prospects.

The next course will run in Canberra from July to November. Ms Penders hoped to revisit plans to run one in New Zealand later this year as well.

Wellington - known affectionately as Wellywood - is now the film centre of New Zealand with an industry Ms Penders said was larger than Australia's.

It's the home base of director Peter Jackson, who put the country's industry on the map with his Lord of the Rings trilogy, and is also the setting for films like James Cameron's Avatar, and the home of visual effects for Planet of the Apes, King Kong and What We Do In The Shadows, among others.

Ms Penders said the plan was for Canberra to become the new Wellywood - a viable destination for outdoor and street scenes, as well as a centre for visual effects.

"I'm super-excited about the opportunities," she said.

"Wellington is really something to aspire to."

Back in Canberra, millionaire entrepreneur John de Margheriti - who describes himself as "the Peter Jackson of Canberra" - said he had devoted most of his career to building a film industry for Canberra.

The founder of the Academy of Interactive Entertainment in Watson, who sold his video games empire BigWorld in 2012, has been working behind the scenes since to develop talent and attract filmmakers to the capital.

He has produced several films, including the recently-wrapped horror movie Sissy, and is working with renowned director Phillip Noyce on a World War II epic, The Rats of Tobruk.

He said while there was still much to be done in terms of building infrastructure and nurturing talent, the growing interest in Canberra was heartening.

"I'm working with the ACT government to embolden them to move things forward," he said.

"To get bigger productions here, there are four components - infrastructure, financial backing, sound stages, and virtual production courses."

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