Mockbuster

Directed by Anthony Frith
Australia
2025
90 mins
An Australian filmmaker documents his struggle to fulfil his dreams via the notorious profit-driven production house The Asylum (Sharknado) in this hilarious audience award winner.

B-movie fan and corporate video maker Anthony Frith has long aspired to direct a feature. In a last-ditch attempt, he contacts the legendary trash movie house, creators of many mockbusters (blockbuster knockoffs). A meeting with executives in Los Angeles follows and he heads home filled with trepidation, a page of plot points and the promise of a script. He is given just six days to shoot a lost world dinosaur film in suburban Adelaide on a shoestring budget. Frith documents the chaotic process, his bewildered cast, and his own creeping self-doubt. As he chases his dream through the rollercoaster hustle that is low-budget genre filmmaking, Frith simultaneously creates this riotous yet insightful documentary.

The Sunday, June 7 session at Dendy Newtown will be followed by a 9.30pm screening of The Land that Time Forgot, the lost-world dinosaur epic produced in Mockbuster.

Mockbuster is about never giving up, despite impossible odds, costume mistakes, organizing camera insurance, and figuring out how to entertain the masses with pocket change.
Kent Hill, Film Threat

Tickets

Sat 6 June 2026, 8:40pm
Event George St - Cinema 9
Assisted ListeningWheelchair
Sun 7 June 2026, 7:15pm
Dendy Newtown - Cinema 3
Assisted ListeningWheelchair
  • Program Strand
  • Year
    2025
  • Classification
    Unclassified 15+
  • Country
    Australia
  • Language
    In English
  • Director
    Anthony Frith
  • Producer
    David Elliot-Jones, Sandy Cameron, Naomi Ball
  • Screenwriter
    Anthony Frith, Sandy Cameron
  • Cinematographer
    Maxx Corkindale
  • Editor
    David Scarborough
  • Genre
  • Company Credits
    Australian Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment
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Sydney Film Festival acknowledges Australia’s First Nations People as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land, and pay respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, upon whose Country SFF is based.

We honour the storytelling and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia.

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