Aussie filmmaker Kimble Rendall, a music video vet whose feature credits include the atrocious “Cut” and the upcoming, and supposedly more effective “Bait 3D”, has signed to helm the $25 million dollar actioner “Blowback”.

Written by genre vet Brian Trenchard-Smith (“Arctic Blast”), the flick tells of an ex-special forces operative fellow named David Craig who, with daughter in two, heads to Sydney to show the kid where he met and fell in love with “mom”. When they arrive in the harbour city, the young Ms Smith is abducted and Craig has 72 hours to find her before she’s pushed through a paper shredder.

Antony I. Ginnane and London-based GFM films (“Neuromancer”, “Tomb of the Dragon”) are teaming on the pic, which was snapped up at AFM last November.

“Mike Ryan and I have known Tony for many years and between us have worked successfully on 6 movies, the last being the Peter Weller sci-fi Screamers released by Triumph Films for Sony. Tony introduced the script to us at the AFM last November and we both felt it to be a very commercial and action packed page turner,’ Guy Collins of GFM commented. “Kimble was the first director to be approached and we are delighted that he has agreed to join the movie. Feedback from distributors on Kimble’s previous work has been very positive.”

Speaking of local productions, Screen Australia has also opened up the fat wallet and financed several other projects this week, including : “The Rover”, the futuristic western with Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson that David Michod is producing and directing, Matthew Saville’s “Felony” starring Joel Edgerton, and “Healing”, about two men in prison (Hugo Weaving and Don Hany) who befriend an Eagle.