Sydney has secured the production of the movie based on the book Mao's Last Dancer which portrays the rags-to-riches story of Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin.
The NSW Government's Film and Television Industry Attraction Fund has helped secure the movie’s production and much of its filming in NSW, creating the equivalent of up to 100 full-time jobs for the State.
Mao's Last Dancer will see the employment of 1,687 people in NSW: 176 people in pre-production and production for 22 weeks plus 1,500 extras during production and 11 people in post-production for 26 weeks.
Mao's Last Dancer is based on the rags-to-riches story of Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin who, at age 11, was chosen to train at the Beijing Dance Academy, and became one of the world's greatest dancers.
The film has been adapted from Li's best-selling autobiography which received the Book of Year Award in Australia and the Christopher Award for Literature in the United States, and is in its 32nd printing having been sold in over 20 countries.
While much of the movie is being filmed in NSW, the production company Last Dancer Pty Ltd has teamed with a Beijing-based company China Film Assist to shoot overseas segments.
The film's production team and many of the key creative personnel for Mao’s Last Dancer hail from NSW.
The movie will be directed by Sydney-born Bruce Beresford, an Academy Award nominated director whose past film credits include Breaker Morant, Puberty Blues, Driving Miss Daisy and Paradise Road.
The director of photography is Sydney's Peter James who worked on Driving Miss Daisy, Alive, Paradise Road, Meet the Parents and The Man Who Sued God.
The film's producer is Sydney's Jane Scott, who has worked on films including Shine (for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and nominated for the Darryl F Zanuck Theatrical Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award by the Producers Guild of America), Strictly Ballroom, Crocodile Dundee and Crocodile Dundee II, My Brilliant Career and Storm Boy.
Sydney Dance Company founders Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon are also involved in the production.
Actors in Mao's Last Dancer will include Australian stars Jack Thompson and Aden Young as well as US star Kyle MacLachlan of Desperate Housewives and the Royal Birmingham Ballet's principal dancer Chi Cao who plays Li Cunxin.
The film will be supported by the Film Finance Corporation and private investors and is scheduled to be released in 2009.