FROZEN ASSETS, a cross-border Australian-Chinese comedy based on true events, has attached legendary Oscar-nominated cinematographer Don McAlpine as Director of Photography. Don will shoot the film on the Arri Alexa 265, the world’s most advanced medium-format cinema camera, in what will be his final film.
Writer-director-producer Sasha Hadden is attending Cannes and seeking international sales representation and co-financing partners. Hadden is also participating in the Cannes Producers Network for the third time (2023, 2025, 2026) and FROZEN ASSETS is, in part, a product of that programme with several of the film’s key Chinese and Hong Kong connections were made through the Producers Network.
Hadden’s debut feature A Stitch in Time (2022) won the AACTA Award for Best Indie Film, screened theatrically across 265 cinemas in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Ireland, and reached the Netflix Australia Top 10 within one week of release — carrying a 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. It was also shot by Don McAlpine.
FROZEN ASSETS is the story of Jonathan, a young Chinese man studying in Sydney, who introduces his Australian partner to his wealthy parents. Their disapproval is extreme and he is summoned back to China. This is a story about family and cultural collision - in which the comedy is real, the stakes are absurd, and love is the only thing holding it together.
Co-writer , with Hadden, is Timothy Zhang who was born in Shenzhen, migrated to Australia at sixteen, and is fluent in the three Chinese dialects - Mandarin, Cantonese, and Teochew - that give the screenplay its cultural precision.
“At its heart, FROZEN ASSETS is a fish-out-of-water comedy built on the universal fear of meeting in-laws. This film takes it to its most extreme, most outrageous, most operatic conclusion - and in doing so, arrives at something genuinely moving. The cultural collision is Chinese and Australian. The emotional experience is everyone’s,” Hadden says.
FROZEN ASSETS is produced by Hadden, with Marc Wooldridge attached as Executive Producer and ANZ theatrical distributor through Maslow Entertainment. The script has been developed with Screen Australia support, with a final polish currently underway by P.J. Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding, My Best Friend’s Wedding) and Craig Wood ACE (Pirates of the Caribbean 1–3, Guardians of the Galaxy 1–2).
“The film sits in the tradition of Muriel’s Wedding, Meet the Parents, and Crazy Rich Asians: comedy-drama where the laughs erupt directly from the pressure of genuinely serious situations,” Hadden adds.