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Open Letter - 20 November ’08 - By Email & Registered Post
TO: Fair Dinkum Australians / Citizens of the World: (Support us through our new AOA Facebook page) cc: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbull - Leader of the Opposition, State Premiers / Ministers for Tourism, Federal Minister for Tourism Martin Ferguson;RE: Most Important Movie in Our Nation's History. And it's Recession Proof! 
Dear Fair Dinkum Australians / Citizens of the World: This is no ordinary Australian movie stuck in pre-production. It's the most important movie in the nation's history. It should therefore be funded by the people themselves through a National Lottery, just like we had when we were kids with the Opera House Lottery, and an even more apt example, the UK Film Council National Lottery. But it's better to have a lottery for each film project so the public can determine the budget, starting with The AOA Movie National Lottery. Highly respected doyen of the Australian Filmmaking Mafia, Bruce Beresford, in his recent memoir, "Josh Harnett definitely wants to do this... true stories from a life in the screen trade" makes it clear that the biggest hurdle to getting Australian films on the world stage is funding - it's always falling through. If we solve that problem with a National Lottery, add an epic story, bring together our Australia Filmmaking Mafia, we can pull this mission off. It's a 'Win-Win' for the country, a solid project with long-term benefits for the economy - jobs, tourism, and a role model for our children in challenging times. All the more relevant as the world sinks into long-term Recession. The people want the government in these times to think outside the box and actually implement projects that are Recession Proof, and are of an innate positive lasting value. Building to the first big payoff timed for the other side of the Recession in '2012 with the release of our Movie to coincide with the hoopla over the 50th anniversary of Lawrence of Arabia. Warren Buffet put it succinctly in his New York Times OpEd article, "Buy American. I am" by aptly quoting Wayne Gretzky’s dictum: “I skate to where the puck is going to be." But there is one complication we need to address. Baz Luhrmann's "Australia" will kill Japan Tourism - but our AOA Script can save the day Everyone should take note, especially Federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson, there is a monumental blunder in the script of Luhrmann's "Australia" that will kill Japan Tourism - the emphasis on the bombing of Darwin. Really the whole film to them is a homage to the good old days of "White Australia Policy" that emphasized the ongoing threats of subhuman "Yellow Peril" from the north. The AOA Producer has lived in Japan. He has many connections in Japan. The Japanese are most unimpressed that they are made always made out to be the only bad guys in the Pacific War. And now in the new millennium, of supposed increasing enlightenment, it is being regurgitated again in a one-sided re-telling of history. Japan was a closed society until America forced them to open up in '1853 after 300 years of Isolationist policy - Just Google Admiral Perry's Black Ships Pacific War Japan. They wanted to exploit them for trade purposes. Japan duly acquiesced and started copying the colonial powers to catch up, especially as they were all entrenched in her backyard. When Japan invaded China in '1905 the first battle was against the Russian section. And the famous Japanese "kami-kaze" (divine wind) suicide pilot comes from the huge armada that left China to conquer Japan but got swamped by a cyclone, earlier in history. The British had already annexed Hong Kong after the Opium Wars. You know, the one where "Her Majesty's Drug Traffickers", as they've been called, were forcing China to accept their opium exports. The Japan upstart got too big for it's britches, America started cutting oil supply routes. Japan retaliates with Pearl Harbour. 
This is another very important reason why the Australian Government should clearly be seen to be supporting the AOA Movie - to show that this issue is going to be properly fixed. And the Tourism campaign will need a followup movie like ours. Our script will have a scene covering the Admiral Perry episode along with the AOA producer first getting the idea of respecting deeds of ancestors from O-Bon festival while living in Japan in '1990s and having a Japanese wife. Funding a film promoting 'humanism' by the Australian people themselves shows they are not racist. Particularly at a time when we have a new African American President Barack Obama ushering in an epochal progessive age of International bilateralism and tolerance based on the 'whole' history of civilization, and not a blinkered cherry-picked view. That just leaves the role model we set for our children. "Please, we don't want to grow up couch potatoes watching DVDs, Otherwise we may end up with the ludicrous situation of getting funding from Japan and transferring Australians of Arabia film production overseas! "Lest Some of Us Forget" Peter & Tara (6 yo) Hogan 
(hanko - personal seal)
Australians of Arabia - The Movie PO Box 1 Potts Point NSW 2011 AOA on Facebook kxol.com.au/aoa kxol.pete@gmail.com 
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