Tonight the Australian Film Industry is having its big awards night.

They can't understand why Australian movies for the most part are not successful.

My wife, Robyn, had a great insight about this....

There is a fundamental disconnect with the movies that are currently being made and people who watch them.

Robyn and I and a lot of our friends are a key part of the theatrical movie going market. We watch art movies. We watch movies from France and Italy with subtitles. We watch Johnny Depp movie. We watch movies that are about people. Often they are about people in strange and unfamiliar situations, but mainly they are about people that are not too different from us. Daniel Auteil movies are pretty close to the bulls eye target of our movie consumption.

But for the main part the Australian movies that are made just don't aim at people like us. They are movies that have bad accents about people that for the most part I don't resonate with, that have stories that I can't empathise with. Take Candy. A story about drug addiction. How am I supposed to resonate with that? Take the Oyster Farmer. How am I supposed to resonate with that?

Is it any wonder that people are staying away in droves from Australian movies?

Here is an industry that was supposed to be a national treasure from a country that was substantially responsible for the genesis of the whole global movie industry. And they cant get it together. Sad really.

The fundamental issue is all about connecting the production output with a real marketplace. Reality is this: I am a baby boomer. I have the time, and the discretionary income to go to the movies. I even have the inclination. But NOT to go to Australian movies. And all they have to do to change this picture is to understand which part of the market goes to see art movies, what their ages are, what their tastes are, and then to make movies that fit that profile. Not too hard. Just requires a commitment to marketing.