by FIlmInk Staff
Acclaimed filmmaker Warwick Thornton was given the prestigious Chauvel Award at the Gold Coast Film Festival last Thursday night. During the ceremony at Warner Bros. Movie World, he revealed an unexpected connection with the classic 1955 Australian film Jedda.
The Chauvel Award, first established in 1993, honours Charles Chauvel and Elsa Chauvel, pioneering Australian filmmakers of Jedda and many other movies.
The award was presented to Thorton by Ric Chauvel Carlsson [above, with Thornton], grandson of Charles and Elsa. During a lively discussion afterwards, the filmmaker revealed his history with the Chauvels’ masterpiece.
“My mother was living on the mission when the Chauvels arrived to do casting and she auditioned for the part of Jedda,” Thornton said. His mother lost out to 16-year-old Ngarla Kunoth, later known as Rosalie Kunoth-Monks and the subject of Thorton’s 2002 documentary, Rosalie’s Journey.
Thornton remembered his mother not being upset about missing out on the role. Instead, he recalled that she came home “full of stories about how the cameraman who did the screen test was the sexiest man.” Carlsson explained this was not DOP Carl Kyser, but Phil Pike, Chauvel’s twenty-something assistant cameraman/director. Thornton joked that his mother’s observation might have planted the notion “at the back of my mind” that “cameramen got all the girls”, and could have been what led him to enter the film industry as a cinematographer (he later branched out into writing and directing).
Thornton first gained global recognition with Samson and Delilah, which won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. He followed this with Sweet Country, earning the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival. His diverse filmography also includes the documentary We Don’t Need a Map, the television series The Beach, and The New Boy, for which he received major cinematography honours including the Camerimage Golden Frog.
Thornton expressed great admiration for Jedda and the efforts of the Chauvels in getting movies produced in an extremely hostile cultural and commercial environment. “We’re all kicking against the same pricks,” he said.
During the award presentation, Ric Chauvel Carlsson offered some of his own trivia about the making of Jedda. He revealed that the dummies thrown off a cliff at the climax of the movie were discovered years later by hiking Boy Scouts, who wrote to Charles and Elsa Chauvel complaining that real actors had not been used during this sequence. Charles replied that Actors’ Equity would not have looked kindly on this.
This year’s Chauvel Award had special resonance, considering that it marked the 100th anniversary of Charles Chauvel’s Moth of Moonbi, the first feature film shot in Queensland. The movie is not as well-known as it should be – Screen Queensland CEO Jacqui Feeney was clearly unfamiliar with the title during her introductory speech – but surviving clips can be accessed at Brollie. The film is also the subject of a recreation project from PhD candidate Andrew Best, in consultation with Ric Chauvel Carlsson.
During the talk, Warwick Thornton mentioned that his next movie would be a biopic of Aboriginal warrior Pemulwuy. Inspired by being in the environment of Warner Bros Movie World, he joked about the possibility of his project after that being “a pirate movie about black pirates and they’re all shit scared by the sea.”
Wolfram is in cinemas 30 April 2026
