Film Finance Corporation Australia
In Australia, there was a special place called the Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) from 1988 to 2008. Its job was to give money to help make Australian movies, TV shows, and documentaries that could earn money back. It helped create famous movies like "Strictly Ballroom" and "Muriel's Wedding". The FFC gave money to 248 movies, spending a total of A$662 million. After 2008, a new group called Screen Australia took its place.
The FFC started in May 1988 when the leader of Australia, Bob Hawke, said it was a good idea. A man named Kim Williams was in charge at first. Before FFC, there were other ways to help movies in Australia, but FFC became the main place to get money for movies and TV. Another group called the Australian Film Commission (AFC) changed to help with making movie stories and training people. The FFC was like a bank for movies, which meant they gave money to projects that could make money later. They chose what movies to invest in by looking at what could sell.
In the world of stories, there is a big family called "speculative fiction." Speculative fiction is like a big umbrella that covers many different kinds of stories that are not about real life. Instead, these stories take us to exciting places that can be magical, scary, from the future, or completely different from the world we know.
In this family, there are many types of stories, like science fiction, which could be about robots or space travel, and fantasy, with dragons and magic. There are also horror stories that might make us feel scared, and fairy tales with princes and princesses. Other kinds tell us about what the world might be like if history had been different, or if the future is a very good or very bad place.
Some people call these stories "SF" or just "spec-fic" for short. But you have to be careful because "SF" can also mean just science fiction, which is about things that could happen based on what we know about science.
There is something special about speculative fiction. It doesn't always follow the usual rules of just one type of story. It lets writers use their imagination in lots of ways. A writer named Harlan Ellison liked to write speculative fiction because he didn't want to only write science fiction. He wanted to write stories that used new and different ideas.
Speculative fiction isn't new; it has been around for a very long time, even from ancient times. Today, writers are still creating new and exciting speculative fiction stories that make us think about all the possibilities of "what if?"
So, when you read a speculative fiction story, get ready to go on a journey to a place where anything can happen. You might find yourself in a land of wizards, a haunted house, a spaceship, or a strange new world you've never seen before.
Some movies become very special to people. A lot of fans really love these movies and watch them many times. They like to talk like the characters in the movie and sometimes have special events about the movie. These movies can be big movies that didn’t make much money at the cinema or movies that are not very common.
Long ago, there were some movies that not many people talked about, but fans liked them a lot and kept watching them. Now, some of these movies are called classics, but people still talk about if they are still special movies. These movies sometimes do better on TV or when you can buy them to watch at home. They can even have their own festivals!
Special movies often have things that are not usual, like being very scary or showing things that are not allowed. This can make people argue about them. But fans who really understand these movies feel happy when they can show how much they know.
Some movies like this make their own little groups of fans. These groups enjoy the same kind of things and sometimes become friends because of these movies.