It is shaping to be the best year at the box office for Aussie productions since 2001, writes GARRY MADDOX.
You can list any number of reasons that Australian films should be struggling in cinemas.
With massive marketing budgets, Hollywood blockbusters continue to dominate. Ticket prices are up. Viewers are downloading movies at home. TV drama is better than ever. And new streaming services and digital channels have delivered more entertainment options, including scores of movies.
But against all odds, Australian films have bounced back in cinemas this year. 
It started when The Water Diviner, which opened on Boxing Day last year, took a strong $15.8 million then continued when the family film Paper Planes surprised with $9.7 million.
The hits continued with Mad Max: Fury Road ($21.6 million), the documentary That Sugar Film (a record $1.7 million), the touching drama Last Cab to Darwin ($6.4 million) and, on limited release, the gay romance Holding the Man ($767,000).
And there are still many releases to come including two this week, the animated Blinky Bill the Movie and the family comedy Oddball, followed by the crime drama Cut Snake next week, the comic drama The Dressmaker and the cross-cultural romance Alex & Eve next month and the comedy Now Add Honey in   November.
Sure, there have been box office disappointments, including Manny Lewis, Partisan and Ruben Guthrie. But it is still shaping as a boom year at the box office, with the Australian share likely to be the best since the Moulin Rouge and Lantana-fuelled 7.8 per cent in 2001.
So is it just that the Australian films are better this year? Or are they being better marketed?
Is the nation's enthusiasm for Australian television drama crossing over into cinemas? Or is it just that surging box office for all movies - up 12 per cent on last year recently - is boosting local releases?
The managing director of Universal Pictures in Australia, Mike Baard, believes it comes down to the quality of individual films.
"There's no secret sauce that gets dropped into the filmmaking community and suddenly they're connecting with audiences," he says. "And it's not like the Australian films that are hitting the marketplace are being developed with a cohesive strategy behind them.
"They're all individually developed ... and arrive in their own individual capacity."
But Baard notes one significant factor: they were all funded under the federal government filmmaking incentive known as the producer offset, a 40 per cent tax rebate that was introduced in 2007.
"The Water Diviner and The Dressmaker would not have been made without the offset," he says. "It simply would not have been possible for movies of that scale - not $100 million tentpoles, just modestly budgeted movies by a global standard - [to be financed]."
Instead of small-scale films costing $2 million to $5 million, the offset has allowed producers to fund more ambitious projects costing from $10 million up to the Hollywood scale of Mad Max. With higher production values and stars - Kate Winslet and Liam Hemsworth for The Dressmaker, for example - these films can justify wider releases backed by TV advertising, which increases their chance of box office success.
There are other reasons, too. While Crowe was a first-time director, the rebate has allowed such experienced hands as George Miller (Mad Max), Robert Connolly (Paper Planes), Jeremy Sims (Last Cab to Darwin) and Neil Armfield (Holding the Man) to make films with well-developed scripts, in contrast to years when Australian film was dominated by first-time writer-directors. The quality of many of these projects attracted private investors, which boosted their budgets.
Most of these films also share a sense of life-affirming triumph, even if there is a notable death before the end. That's something shared with such Australian hits as Crocodile Dundee, Babe, Happy Feet, Strictly Ballroom and Red Dog.
While the real financial success of Australian films depends on how they sell around the world, Baard agrees with the popular notion that audiences were turned off Australian film for a time by too many downbeat and limited-interest releases.
"Australian audiences simply want to see good movies," he says. "The fact that Australian television is enjoying such a productive time - I'm talking about Australian drama - is indicative of the fact that they are stories that are connecting with an audience.
"That's what you've got to do. There were too many movies that were relatively morose and downbeat. Audiences just went, 'God, I don't want to spend time watching that'."
The producer of Holding the Man and The Sapphires, Kylie Du Fresne, thinks success comes down to the quality of the films.
"Both Holding the Man and Last Cab to Darwin show people are having an emotional experience, which drives a really positive word-of-mouth," she says.