Towards the end of the 1950s, a group of filmmakers in France made a series of films in concert with each other, helping to create what would soon be termed as a ‘wave’.
They’d often work on each other’s shoots, use the same actors, they’d write together.
Some films were made possible largely due to donations of cameras and film stock from others’ films. Many of the films were made for tiny budgets – they even referenced each other’s efforts within their own films.
At MIFF this year, a number of films that had low budgets, many by first time feature makers drew attention at the festival.
Acute Misfortune, Strange Colours, West of Sunshine, Under The Cover of Cloud and Undertow, were among the festival’s most spoken about films.
Many of them shared crew.
All of them were the feature debuts of their respective filmmakers.
As well as being Jason Raftopoulos’s first film, West of Sunshine was lensed by DOP Thom Neal in his feature debut.
All of them were made in Victoria except Strange Colours and Under The Cover of Cloud (though the filmmakers were both Melbourne based).
“There are certain kinds of unifying parts of all of these works,” Thomas M. Wright told us, the actor turned-director of The Age Critics’ Prize Winner, Acute Misfortune.
Thomas M. Wright in Top of the Lake
Many of the films at the Festival had close links. “They’re all lower-budget films. They’re all made in this really kind of threadbare, quite rough way. All financed unconventionally. All made unconventionally, within the bounds of normal cinema,” said Wright.
Two of the films, Alena Lodkina’s Strange Colours and Acute Misfortune, shared an editor in Luca Cappelli (also Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s upcoming The Empyrean).
Another tie between the two works is Strange Colours producer Kate Laurie, who was production coordinator on Acute Misfortune. Laurie is also producing The Empyrean.
“Strange Colours was a film myself, Alena (Lodkina) and Isaac (Wall) developed. Alena and I have been working together for 5 or 6 years,” Laurie told us.
The film was able to come together through funding from the Venice Biennale College Cinema, a development program which offers 150,000 euros for micro budget features, which are not allowed to seek extra funds above the existing budget.
The program provides funding for just three filmmaking teams.
Laurie came to be involved in Acute Misfortune when she was offered the role of production coordinator on her return from Venice.
Collaborating on the two projects alongside her was Leah Popple, who Laurie first met on the film Ruin. (A film co-directed by Courtin-Wilson and Michael Cody, shot in Cambodia where the two were roommates). Popple was the production designer on Strange Colours and Acute Misfortune.
The designer had worked on earlier short films directed by Colours’ Lodkina and Wall; and together with Wright, director Thomas Henning (MIFF 2018 work Ema Nudar Umanu) and Amiel Courtin-Wilson, made theatre production Doku Rai in East Timor.
That project was a collaboration between Australian and East Timorese artists that explored colonialism, produced by the Black Lung Theatre and Whaling Firm.
Cementing the many connections, Wright and Henning, creative partners, started The Black Lung Theatre and Whaling Firm together. Popple also worked with Courtin-Wilson and Laurie on The Empyrean.
Ted Wilson, actor, director, caterer
Ted Wilson, who directed Under The Cover of Cloud, catered Strange Colours.
Wilson shared an office with Kate Laurie, producer Ruth Morris (Neighbours), and Cloud DOP Joshua Aylett. Alena Lodkina was director’s attachment on Cloud.
For Wright, the films are united by their overlapping collaborators, a strength the filmmaker is keen to utilise.
“I’m really determined to try to tie this community of people (and new collaborators) together into these conversations, because I think your work only gets stronger. The more voices, the better.
“Dame Hill is an old friend of mine, who played the lead in West of Sunshine,” continues Wright. “And because the festival facilitates these discussions, I got to meet and talk with West of Sunshine director Jason Raftopoulos.
“I was involved in consulting on Strange Colours. Alena was involved in consulting on Acute Misfortune. Kate Laurie worked on both, Dylan River [whose film Finke: There and Back, also premiered at MIFF 2018),was the cinematographer on Sweet Country.
“Kitty Green [Casting JonBenet] was another figure, Amiel-Courtin Wilson worked with Kate [Laurie], Alena cut The Silent Eye, Amiel’s film that played at MIFF last year, which Germaine McMicking [Wright’s DOP on Acute Misfortune] was the cinematographer of. Shelly Lorman [part of Wright’s Black Lung theatre) and Niamh Peren [worked in the casting department on Top Of The Lake, in which Wright acted] as well.”
Lorman was a schoolmate of Wright’s. Wright and Undertow’s Miranda Nation knew each other from school connections.
For Strange Colours producer Kate Laurie, this intersection involved providing feedback and assistance to Ted Wilson in pre-production on Under The Cover of Cloud. “Because we were sharing an office, I read his treatment. He had worked for me when I was working with Amiel Courtin-Wilson on The Empyrean. So, we kind of always helped each other.”
Under The Cover of Cloud, Wilson’s film which explores cricket and literature, had an original cut of 15 hours. This was dwindled down through multiple edits.
“With his film, it was really made in the edit, I saw quite a lot of cuts of the film,” says Laurie.
Miranda Nation, director of Undertow, which was partly financed by the MIFF Premiere Fund, knew Damian Hill through him going to school with her partner. Hill also acted in 2014 film Fell – which she was director’s attachment on. Nation also knew Acute Misfortune star Dan Henshell through Fell.
Miranda Nation
Henshell read drafts of Undertow, as did Wright. “We’re all part of the same Melbourne milieu,” Nation said.
“It’s those challenges of getting a first feature up. It’s really great to have collaborators and people going through the battle with you, who you can talk it through with. Even when you meet someone for the first time, everyone’s really supportive.
“To have that sort of network, everyone is really generous and collaborative. I feel like it’s a really good spirit, people are in it together,” the filmmaker added.
The use of a regular group of crew members and collaborators helping each other, similar to a repertory theatre, isn’t a new one, but it is something that hasn’t always been present in Australian films of late.
“For me, coming from a background of independent theatre, there was a community of theatre makers, it was incredibly strong,” Wright told us.
“In the film industry, there’s traditionally I think been less contact between people. But because here you have a group of filmmakers all making work outside of that conventional paradigm, or working with lower budgets, it’s a much more collaborative space. And there’s also this extraordinary sequence of connections that are present in the films that screened at MIFF this year,” he continued.
Wright, who studied theatre at the VCA, and dropped out at 19 after a year and a half to co-form one of the most acclaimed theatre houses in Melbourne, has been in overseas productions like TV’s The Bridge and Outsiders, and features Everest and The Man with the Iron Heart.
The scale of these would dwarf most of the local features being made. Yet he is enthused by the recent surge of strong projects in the local film industry.
“A wave seems to infer something slightly more imposing and intense, but you look at them, the state of the industry at the moment… 38 films nominated for the AACTAs this year. 10 original narrative drama films playing at MIFF. That’s an extraordinary amount of content for this country. And I think it’s the type of thing that will carry on.
“I’ve spent five, six years working overseas, and I couldn’t be more satisfied to be here in that community of people, and to be having those conversations. There’s actually a momentum here.”
Reflecting on the state of the industry, the actor and filmmaker references the fact that producer Robert Connolly delivered a white paper to the Screen Producers Association in 2008 where he talked about low budget methodology, and what that means, and why it’s important.
Speaking to AFTRS, Connolly advocated a new methodology focusing on innovation and a “re-imagining” of how local features are produced.
“There’s always filmmakers trying to make shorts, and that’s a struggle in itself. But there seems to be a movement of filmmakers ready to make their feature, and do it any way they can,” Kate Laurie offered.
“For us that was finding the money out of Italy. For Ted (Wilson) it was just credit card debt.
“There’s a do-it-yourself mentality. Looking outwards and figuring out who else might help the film,” Laurie added.
“I guess there’s always waves of filmmakers coming up together. People have commented that this year seems like a particularly strong year for Australian films and it’s kind of exciting, a wave of new voices coming through,” Undertow’s Miranda Nation said.
“Every one of those films had different funding models,” Nation commented.
Wright had a series of conversations with Warwick Thornton about the low-fi making of Samson and Delilah, the ideas of the ‘smell of an oily rag’ methodology. This “solidified the approach with Acute Misfortune,” Wright said.
Thornton helmed Wright in Sweet Country. That film premiered at Venice alongside two of the above films, both by Melbourne directors, Strange Colours and West of Sunshine.
Wright sees a through-line between the works. “With films like Strange Colours being the strongest example, and Ema Nudar Umanu, we’re part of a discussion, part of the conversation. Jane Campion always says that to make an individual film is just a contribution to the conversation. You want to make a valuable contribution to the conversation, and to be part of an actual conversation between filmmakers,” Wright told us.
“This means a discussion of thematic content, the filmmaking process that’s happening between these varied people. And that’s terrific. From script stage to financing through discussing the relationships, the personal reasons for making work. I don’t think the film environment 10 – 15 years ago was as conducive to that sort of conversation,” said Wright.
Another connection between the films – the undercurrent of what they say about Australian society.
Many of the films are to a degree studies of character, rather than landscape or genre, as may have been the trend in previous years.
Looking at the raft of disparate experiences and stories, Wright mused “there’s a thread that’s about subverting narrative. That’s certainly in Alena’s film, that’s certainly in Thomas (Henning’s) film, it’s certainly in Acute Misfortune. To subvert the traditional Australian archetype, the films we make. Someone mentioned that Strange Colours is kind of the inverse Wake In Fright.
“There’s a spiritual element, an emotional element, there’s an interrogation of place and purpose to the films that are being generated by this group of people.
“It’s a very modern conversation that’s taking place,” he added. “And a lot the films are from people coming from a background other than film.”
Many of them films are directed by individuals who didn’t follow the traditional path of commercial film and TV, large scale productions. That, in itself, is a marked change from the norm of Australian films. Multiple helmers are actors turned directors, including Raftopoulos and Nation.
“Alena never worked in the commercial space, Kitty Green never worked in that space, Amiel never worked in that space. I haven’t. Ted didn’t come from that space. And neither did Miranda. And that’s a really striking thing,” says Wright.
This was a defining feature of the French New Wave, where many of the central figures in the movement unusually were not filmmakers to begin with, but critics who moved into filmmaking.
“The engine is in the relationships between people, and I think that’s a unifying intention of Strange Colours and Acute Misfortune,” Wright added.
Another linkage – as well as being made by non-traditional filmmakers, both Strange Colours and Under The Cover of Cloud have been called non-narrative. Acute Misfortune also strays from traditional cues and conventions.
Wright, who came to screen from theatre, was mentored as a filmmaker by figures like Jane Campion, Robert Connolly and Garth Davis. Talking to other filmmakers was key.
“I learnt so much being thrown into conversations with people like Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), working with Warwick Thornton, who really became mentors to me.
“This community of filmmakers is essential, those grassroots conversations about cinema language, about references, about the type of film we enjoy, how we want to make film.”
The tradition of mentorship and networks of filmmakers isn’t a new one. The obvious example is Blue-Tongue Films, which is made up of Nash Edgerton, Joel Edgerton, David Michod, Sean Kruck, Spencer Susser, Mirrah Foulkes and Luke Doolan.
Robert Connolly himself was mentored by John Maynard, who together with Bridget Ikin, produced Jane Campion’s early work, such as Sweetie. Thomas M. Wright acted for Connolly on Balibo (2009).
When Campion was coming up, she was part of a collective – the experimental group Sydney Filmmakers Co-Op, which included Phillip Noyce, Peter Weir, and her Piano producer Jan Chapman.
Maynard also briefly mentored Miranda Nation, and was instrumental in this year’s Jirga, which won the CinefestOZ prize of $100,000.
“There’s that thing of a more experienced group that are really generous about mentoring emerging practitioners,” Nation noted.
In Undertow’s case, that was Liz Watts, EP of the film, and producer of Animal Kingdom and Lore.
Campion was a similar example for Wright. “Jane’s cinema was like a lightning bulb for me. An Angel At My Table was that for me. And that was produced by John Maynard and Bridget Ikin. John Maynard is one of my old friends. He was Robert Connolly’s mentor, who’s my mentor, and they made the film together, The Boys.”
Completing the circle, The Boys, Rowan Woods’ 1998 drama starring David Wenham and Toni Collette as Western Sydney suburbs hoods, is featured in Acute Misfortune.
Wright believes that it’s these links between filmmakers and their output which is central to any wave or group of filmmakers.
“Acute Misfortune has Dan Henshell, who is the lead in Snowtown, playing Adam Cullen, talking to David Wenham, representing Brett Sprague, who’s playing a version of John Travers, who raped and killed Anita Cobby, as represented in The Boys, produced by Robert Connolly, who is producing this film…
“Filmmakers are talking to one another through their cinema. That used to happen literally within theatre all the time. It was kind of an offering to continue the discussion.”
Wright, continuing the conversation, worked with the next generation of filmmakers.
“I spent several days with all the MIFF Accelerator filmmakers, and to have an opportunity to talk to all those filmmakers and see what they’re making, it’s an incredibly exciting time for Australian cinema.”
Are the filmmakers OK with being part of a wave?
“I don’t know how comfortable I am with the term New Wave,” Strange Colours producer Kate Laurie said.
“I think I’ve heard that before, when Snowtown and Hail came out. But there’s definitely something going on in terms of people finding a way to make their first films. If one person does it, other people think they can do it, all of a sudden you just find people going out and doing it,” she said.
“The wave of lower-budget, new voices at MIFF this year is really exciting, to be a part of that, I feel really thrilled,” Undertow’s Miranda Nation said.
“I think this is actually a conversation that is happening all the time, more than a momentary wave,” Wright said.
“But let’s call it that,” he told us.
What’s the take-away for emerging filmmakers reading this article?
“To anyone who’s reading this, and obviously there’s a lot of filmmakers that read this. Reach out. Reach out and go directly to filmmakers. Speak to them, engage them in discussion and reach out personally. People are more receptive than you would know,” Wright said.
Acute Misfortune is screening at the Brisbane International Film Festival and the Adelaide Film Festival.
Under the Cover of Cloud is screening at the Brisbane International Film Festival.
