Sophie’s starring in “Two Mothers”, alongside Naomi Watts and Robin Wright, who play middle aged best friends who fall in love with each other’s sons. Production wrapped up a couple of months ago and is due for release early 2013. Here are her thoughts:

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And Xavier Samuel plays your boyfriend – what’s he like to play opposite?

Xavier’s great, we’re really great friends. We have a child together in the film, so we were in heaps of scenes together – it was certainly something different having a little kid around while shooting!

Australian actors Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom), Sophie Lowe (The Slap) and Gary Sweet (Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) and Jessica Tovey (underbelly) have been announced as supporting cast in the new Australian/French co-production The Grandmothers.

Starring Naomi Watts and fellow Australian Xavier Samuel, as well as Robin Wright and James Frecheville the film is a collaboration between producer Andrew Mason of Hopscotch Features and French producer Phillipe Carcassonne (The Illusionist, Coco avant Chanel) with Anne Fontaine (Coco avant Chanel) directing.

The film will be Fontaine’s English-language directorial debut with he script is adapted from Doris Lessing’s novel of the same name by Oscar winning Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons, Atonement).

The eight-week shoot is scheduled to take place around Sydney with a ScreenNSW investment of $3.3m, expected to stimulate $57.8m of spend in the state and create more than 3,300 jobs for cast, crew and extras.

The Grandmothers is the first from Hopscotch’s production arm and anticipated for a 2013 release.

They might be the newest awards on the block, but if the team behind the AACTAs get their way, they are also about to be our best known. The new gongs from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, are to be presented in Australia for the first time (in place of the old AFI awards) in January next year, but nominations will be announced in Los Angeles at the annual G’Day USA black tie gala. ”Australia’s film and television industries play an important role in forming our cultural identity,” Damian Trewhella, the chief of the Australian Film Institute/AACTA, said. ”And we look forward to working alongside G’Day USA to raise the profile of our screen industry internationally.” All of which means that at next year’s event, along with the traditional usual ”Feed Americans Vegemite And Watch Them Gag”, Aussies will be able to play a new game: ”Explain Who Harold Bishop Is”. In other film trophy news, the Inside Film Awards have announced their presenters for next week’s event. David Wenham, Richard Roxburgh, Sophie Lowe, Callan McAuliffe, and Dan Wyllie will be joining Xavier Samuel as hosts on the night. Nominations will be announced this week.