All paths from Home lead to Hollywood ANOTHER day, another Home and Away star cast in a US film. Today, it's Brenton Thwaites, who has been cast opposite Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep in Phillip Noyce's The Giver. The dystopian thriller is based on Lois Lowry's young adult novel about a society with no conflict, racism or sickness. Thwaites will play a young boy who is selected for his life service as the Receiver of Memories and works with The Giver (Bridges), an old man who teaches the boy to use his unique gifts. It will be the Rabbit-Proof Fence director's first feature since the thriller Salt in 2010. Noyce has directed some American television since then, including episodes of Michael Mann's Luck, Revenge and the pilot for the coming series Crisis, starring Gillian Anderson and Rachael Taylor. THE local film industry has fallen in love with Angelina Jolie and her new production Unbroken. It appears the first-time director has impressed anyone in the business who has crossed her path as she scouts locations for her World War II drama. The film, about US Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini, who was captured by the Japanese, is casting, and Queensland and NSW appear to be splitting the shoot, which is due to begin late next month. While the film has yet to be greenlit, there is little likelihood the new federal government will kybosh the special $20 million fund created by the Gillard government to attract offshore productions here. It's not as though Tony Abbott would want to turn away an up-and-coming female director, would he? Besides, the special fund was set up on a first come, first served basis and while another offshore production is circling, Jolie's film should be the major beneficiary. Which leads us to the off-again, never-really-on-again Disney production 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Apparently the multi-million-dollar federal government inducement to attract the $200m David Fincher production is still on the books as committed funds. The film remains a possibility to shoot here next year. THE inaugural Body of Work event, run by the Canberra International Film Festival, has confirmed its program around its first honouree, US producer Harvey Weinstein. And it's quite a good one. The major events on the weekend of November 22-24 include a public masterclass with the producer of Shakespeare in Love, an in-conversation session and the Virgin Ball, to be held in the Great Hall of Parliament House. A Harvey's Alumni session will include Geoffrey Rush, Rachel Griffiths and Guy Pearce talking about their experiences with Weinstein. Tickets for the Body of Work events are limited and went on sale on Monday. Details: www.bodyofwork.org.au. INTERESTING to see the Weinstein Co is holding the release of Grace of Monaco, a drama starring Nicole Kidman as actress turned princess Grace Kelly, until next year. Consequently, it will not qualify for this year's Academy Awards. The Hollywood Reporter reports the film, written by Arash Amel and directed by La Vie en Rose's Olivier Dahan and starring Tim Roth, Paz Vega, Parker Posey, Frank Langella and Derek Jacobi, needs more work. Alternatively, Weinstein may not want it to clog up his already full line-up of Oscar contenders: Fruitvale Station; Lee Daniels's The Butler; Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom; Philomena; August: Osage County; and One Chance. THE Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts has confirmed it will conduct its awards screenings next month for selection of nominees for the AACTA Awards. The 15 feature films, four short animation nominees and four short fiction film nominees will screen for members of AACTA and the Australian Film Institute. The free AACTA Awards Screenings will be held in Sydney and Melbourne from October 9 to 30. Anyone wishing to attend must join the AFI/AACTA by October 2. Nominees will be announced later in the year ahead of the third AACTA Awards to be held in Sydney in January next year. ADELAIDE Clemens, star of Perth feature Wasted on the Young and most recently The Great Gatsby, has been cast as the lead in US independent drama The Automatic Hate. It will be directed by Justin Lerner (Girlfriend). Clemens recently starred in the period drama series Parade's End and the US Sundance Channel series Rectify, opposite Aden Young. Clemens joins Joseph Cross, Richard Schiff and Caitlin O'Connell in The Automatic Hate. NO surprises at the weekend box office in the first week of the school holidays. Kids' films took positions one to three and six and seven, led by the DreamWorks Animation film Turbo, which sped to a $1.5 million opening. The kids spread themselves across several films. Percy Jackson: The Sea of Monsters earned $1.4m in its first week and The Smurfs 2 had $1.2m in its second weekend. The top adult movie was Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, which earned another $929,329 on the strength of Cate Blanchett's performance, for a total box office of $2.5m. The surprises were poor numbers for One Direction: This is Us, which opened with only $881,305, and the Cars spin-off, not from Pixar but the DisneyToons Studio, Planes, which managed only $757,270. Pedro Almodovar's I'm So Excited opened with a limp $52,962 on 20 screens while Aussie film The Rocket holds in there with another $35,702 taking its haul to $331,783.