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War Ghosts
A short film about an Aussie Digger wraps production in time for Anzac Day
Australian short film, Ghosts of War, about an Aussie Digger in World War One, has been selected in competition at the Newport Beach Film Festival in California. In a nice twist of fate, the film is scheduled to screen on Anzac Day.
The film tells the story of Australian Private Joseph Richmond who exchanges shots with an unseen enemy before retreating to his trench where he is confronted by a mysterious soldier. The soldier reveals himself to be Joe as well, that Joe's shooting exchange was fatal, and he has been dead ever since. The soldier represents everything Joe had to leave behind to become a soldier, and now he is dead, the two must reunite so Joe's soul can meet its destiny.
In his directorial debut, David Sander (who has worked largely in graphics and visual effects on a number of projects including Khoa Do's Missing Water and Ben Ferris' Penelope) acknowledges that while the themes in this film are not groundbreaking or new, the issue of what it takes to go to war to kill is always a compelling one.
"Ghosts of War is an exploration of the idea that every man drafted to war has the need to separate himself in two - the man who would march off to war, leaving his loved ones behind, to kill his fellow man; and the man left behind, who maintains his compassion, humanity and the morals and ethics of civilised society," Sander explains.
The film's producer Enzo Tedeschi (who produced and edited the controversial but well-received documentary Food Matters) explains that the film was lucky enough to cross paths with Post-Op Group, a sound and vision post-production house.
"Post-Op not only put up post-facilities, CG work and audio post in kind, but also put up a substantial amount of cash for the production. In addition to other equity, our budget was something around the $350,000 mark," Tedeschi says. "This film took a drastic step-up in scale once they were on board - we were originally going to be shooting in a tiny set in a studio!"
Instead the film was able to be shot in a paddock in Western Sydney where the crew designed real trenches. "Our set was outdoors, which meant a night shoot in the mud in the middle of a paddock with a crew of almost 50," explains Tedeschi. "It was a long night of shooting. David and I were on set at about 2pm on shoot day, and were making the one hour drive back to Sydney after the sun had come up the next day!"
As well as creating a moving war film, Tedeschi explains he had another aim. "I want people to see that we can make films in Australia that aren't all gritty urban kitchen dramas, or tales of the outback. Not that these films are bad, but the public perception seems to be that they are. Our talent pool here in this country is often exploited by overseas genre film productions, but when a local film kicks in, genre seems to be a dirty word.
"We can tell Australian stories and still be ambitious in scale and subject matter," Tedeschi explains before reflecting for a moment. "There seems to be some interesting films from Australia hitting our screens of late, so hopefully the tide is turning."
For more information about Ghosts Of War, visit the film's website.