Mark Grentell​, director of the warm-hearted cricket comedy Backyard Ashes, has a new film that will take a comic look at refugees settling in Australia.

Another comedy, The Merger is an adaptation of comic Damian Callinan's one-man show about a country football coach who hatches an unorthodox plan to rebuild a local team by recruiting recently settled asylum seekers.

Grentell will shoot it in Wagga Wagga, his home town and the filming location for 2013's Backyard Ashes, later in the year.

 "The live version of The Merger, which has toured every nook of the nation, used empathy to simplify the confusion over the refugee issue and was well received by audiences of all ilks," Callinan says.  

Screen Australia head of production Sally Caplan describes The Merger as a "witty, topical and engaging story that we expect will resonate with city and country folk alike".

Backyard Ashes, shot for $300,000 after shares were sold to the local community and launched in regional cinemas before it reached capital cities, ended up taking $350,000 at the box office.

Secret Manus Island documentary to screen

Such is the urgency over the refugee crisis that new films are bobbing up everywhere. As The Merger is funded, a reputedly shocking documentary that has been shot secretly at Manus Island detention centre is reaching the screen. 

Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time will have its world premiere at Sydney Film Festival on June 11 then have a short season at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne from June 16 to 18.

It's a collaboration between an Iranian-Dutch filmmaker, Arash Kamali Sarvestani​, and an Iranian-Kurdish journalist, Behrouz Boochani​, who has been detained for three years. 

Filmed in secret: Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time.

Boochani filmed what are described as "first-hand accounts of harassment, belittlement and mistreatment" at the camp on a mobile phone. After appearing in Sydney, Sarvestani will introduce each session at ACMI and speak at Q&A sessions afterwards. 

Black comedy nabs best short prize at St Kilda 

A black comedy about a group of soldiers returning home from war, Andrew Kavanagh's Welcome Home Allen, has won the $10,000 prize for best short film at the St Kilda Film Festival.

It was the third instalment of a trilogy of shorts by Kavanagh, starting with At The Formal then Men of the Earth, about the collision between the past and present.

Prizewinner ... Welcome Home Allen.

At the closing night ceremony at St Kilda Town Hall on the weekend, the award for best documentary went to Peter Drew's The Khalik Family Kite, about an outback camel procession that celebrated a pioneer cameleer. Like Welcome Home Allen, its win made it eligible for consideration in the Academy Awards next year. 

Best director went to Mirene Igwabi​ for Adele and best actor went to Sapphire Blossom for Slapper. Festival director Paul Harris says the quality and diversity of the films that screened over 10 days is testament to "the exciting talent" emerging in Australian film. 

Twitter @gmaddox