The independent competitions which run parallel with the Venice International Film Festival have announced their line-ups, with three Australian films being selected to screen.
Tanna, the first dramatic feature by documentary duo Bentley Dean and Martin Butler (Contact, First Footprints), is one of seven films selected for this year's Venice International Film Critics' Week competition. The Venice Critics' Week celebrates the feature films made by first-time directors.
None of us had ever made a film before and here we are in Venice.
Early Winter, a Canadian-Australian co-production from director Michael Rowe (Leap Year), is one of 11 films in competition in Venice Days, which is modelled on the Cannes Directors Fortnight. The Australian film The Daughter, directed by Simon Stone and produced by Jan Chapman and Nicole O'Donohue, is not in competition but will screen as the closing night film.
It will be the world premiere for both Early Winter and Tanna, and the international premiere of The Daughter - which screened at this year's Sydney Film Festival.
Tanna co-director Bentley Dean told SBS Movies the inclusion of his film in the Venice Critic's Week is "huge".
“None of us had ever made a film before and here we are in Venice,” Dean said.
Dean approached his first feature film with a documentary spirit, relocating his young family to the island of Tanna in Vanuatu with no particular story in mind but wanting to make a film that was community driven.
The story that emerged was about forbidden love, a Romeo and Juliet-style tragedy a few decades earlier that instigated change within the arranged marriage traditions. Dean and Butler worked with first-time actors - village locals who had never watched a feature film before before the duo arrived - and a translator, as the film is spoken in the local Nauvhal language.
“It was led by this exchange of a curious outsider and people who really wanted aspects of their culture to get out there,” Dean said.
While the world premiere will be in Venice, there was a cast and crew screening on Tanna just a few weeks after Cyclone Pam rampaged through Vanuatu earlier this year.
“It was like a bomb zone when we went back there, but they wanted us to go back and show the film so we sewed a couple of sheets together. I brought over a projector and some sound system and we showed it there in the middle of the village,” Dean said.
Dean is excited that the Venice screening is likely to increase the film's international distribution.
“Hopefully that will lead to more interest because you make your film to be seen and this is one of those real rare ones, you’ll be looking at people and a situation that probably won’t be around for that much longer and once that’s gone it’s gone.”
It is also a first-of-sorts for the two Australian films which will screen in Venice Days.
Michael Rowe's Early Winter, about a man working in a retirement home in Canada to support his family and starring Melissa George, Paul Doucet and Suzanne Clément, is the Cannes Caméra d'Or-winning director's first feature film in English. Rowe is based in Mexico, and has previously made Spanish-language films.
Nicole O'Donohue is co-producer of The Daughter - director Simon Stone's adapatation of Henrik Ibsen's play 'The Wild Duck', starring Geoffrey Rush, Ewen Leslie, Paul Schneider, Miranda Otto and Anna Torv. The film is an emotional drama centred on the return of Christian (Schneider) to his home town for his father's wedding to a much younger woman.
A scene from 'The Daughter'. Source: The Daughter
“We’re absolutely thrilled to be acknowledged and invited into the festival, we’re all huge fans of the Venice Film Festival – Jan and Simon and I – and for Simon’s first feature it’s a really special position,” O'Donohue told SBS Movies.
Buyers are more likely to be there.
“Venice is certainly considered to be one of the top festivals and it’s a prestigious place to launch an international premiere."
There will also be a press and industry screening of The Daughter in Venice, and O'Donohue believes being in the Venice festival program will increase the visibility of the film for international buyers.
“Buyers are more likely to be there,” she said.
While O'Donohue and Chapman are preparing for their Europe trip, Stone will have a much shorter distance to travel - he's currently in Switzerland directing theatre.
The 72nd Venice International Film Festival will run from September 2-12, with its official selection of films to be announced later this week.
A work-in-progress version of Early Winter will screen at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival.
