Victoria Stone-Meadows

IN 2009, Maya Weidner was the school captain at Mossman State High. Seven years later, she can lay claim to producing her first feature film.

And at 8:30 tomorrow night, Rise, featuring Martin Sacks, will be screened on Channel 9 Gem.

“Over a two-year period, I have worked alongside director Mack Lindon and actors Nathan Wilson, Sacks (Blue Heelers, Wonderland, Wentworth) and Marty Rhone (veteran pop singer of Denim and Lace) to produce my first feature film,” said Weidner.

“And the Mossman/Port Douglas community has supported me along this amazing journey and I am extremely grateful.

“I also owe a lot to Mossman State High as I was school captain back in 2009 and love showing the local students that they too can do incredible things,” she said.

The wild men of Ipswich with hearts of gold get their chance to shine in the largely Ipswich-shot film Rise.

Having a plethora of tattoos can be a drawback to getting some employment gigs, but not in the case of the Mack Lindon-directed movie, which was shot on location at Borallon Correctional Centre.

The film’s co-producer, Maya Weidner, said there was plenty of quality material to work with when auditions were held in the Ipswich mall for prisoners for the jail shots.

“We needed the look. We wanted tattoos, and the more natural tattoos people had the less make-up we had to do on them,” she said.

“At these auditions we had bikies come in and guys that had their sleeves, necks and faces tattooed.
A lot of people have preconceived ideas, but the beautiful thing was that the biggest bikies and the scariest looking guys were the sweetest ones to work with on set.

“And that is what our whole film is about… changing the perceptions of people.”

The city's reputation as the Hollywood of south-east Queensland is growing by the day and the film is another in the long line of movies to be filmed in the district.

The film was shot in the park at South St, in Limestone St and at North Ipswich Primary School and the Brisbane premiere of the film is on November 4 at Palace Cinemas.

View this link: http://www.ladypinkcreative.com/projects/#/rise-movie-co-producer/