2000 Weeks

2000 Weeks (aka. Two Thousand Weeks) is a 1969 Australian drama film directed by Tim Burstall.

Paul Byrnes from the NFSA comments: "2000 Weeks was one of the first features of the modern era in Australian cinema, after decades in which almost the only productions were British and American films in search of exotic locales. ... There was an intense desire amongst a few people to restart an Australian film industry, and Burstall was one of the leaders. Indeed, he made nationalist artistic longings the main theme of the film, although it didn’t help the film’s reception. It was booed when it screened at the 1970 Sydney Film Festival and damned by some influential critics. The box office was poor and Burstall became determined to make films for a wide commercial audience, rather than an art-house few. Many of these later films, starting with Stork (1971) and Alvin Purple (1973), were great popular successes."

Will, a writer in his thirties, faces a crisis in his life when he has to choose between his wife and mistress. He is also on the fence about choices in his professional life, something that is accentuated when he meets a childhood friend who has become a successful TV producer in England. He calculates he has two thousand weeks left in his life to achieve success.

Eltham Films was a production company formed by Tim Burtstall and Patrick Ryan which had made a number of short films and TV series. They made the film as a co-production with Senior Films, a large production house in Melbourne who specialised in making commercials. Burstall later said that 45% of the budget came from Eltham Films, 45% from Senior Films and 10% from Peter Lord at Victorian Film Laboratories. His idea was to make a movie for the international art house market.

Filming started on 2 January 1968 and took eleven weeks with a crew of fourteen.

The film was autobiographical, with "two thousand weeks" being an expression Burstall used in the 1950s.

Burstall secured Columbia Pictures as a distributor and they agreed to split the $10,000 in marketing costs with Elthan Films, but it took them seven months to release it, but Burstall put this down to the reluctance of Australian exhibitors to show local movies.

The film was poorly received by Australian critics such as Colin Bennett of The Age and at Australian film festivals. It received a better critical reception overseas. The experience encouraged Burstall to move in a more commercial direction for the rest of his career. However he did later explore many of the themes from 2000 Weeks again in Petersen (1974).