My background was art school, documentary director and surfer with a keen interest in thrilling acts of life threatening stupidity.

All the jokes in my films, the comedy, they're not me, I just try to hold a big mirror up to us.

There are a thousand weird untold stories in the Australian film industry, this has been one of them.

The obsession required to see a feature through from concept to release is not a rational thing to do with your brief time on this planet. Nor is it something to which an intelligent person should aspire.

So we have to be careful because if you don't protect your culture you won't have it for very long.

I kind of worry about that a little bit - we lost our film culture for 30 years because the Americans came in and bought up all the cinema chains and wouldn't show any Australian films.

If government and media and all of us in the Australian tribe got together, and the rock industry, we'd just be the greatest cultural force the world has ever seen - we're such an amazing race.