News

The Australian drama premiered at Cannes and stars Cate Blanchett.

Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy leads the nominations for the 2024 Aacta (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) Awards with 12 nods, closely followed by horror Talk To Me with 11 nominations.

The New Boy is up for best film, actress for Cate Blanchett and actor for newcomer Aswan Reid while Australian Indigenous filmmaker Thornton is nominated for best director, screenplay and cinematography.

The film is set in 1940s Australia and stars Blanchett (who also serves as a producer) as a nun who takes in a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy. It...

Kitty Green’s film stars Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick as backpackers forced to take a dodgy-sounding job dealing with the boozy miners in the dusty middle of nowhere

A weak and anticlimactic ending sadly deflates this movie from Australian director Kitty Green, who gave us the gripping #MeToo drama The Assistant from 2019. It’s a shame, as The Royal Hotel had been developing as a very tense and well acted psychological thriller and outback noir, but the ultimate scares somehow go missing along with any satisfying plot resolutions.

As co-writer with Oscar Redding, Green takes her inspiration from Hotel Coolgardie, a tough and disturbing documentary about a chaotically rough pub in remote Western Australia which periodically hires female backpackers to work behind the bar. But the young women who do the job soon realise that this isn’t a wacky place like the one in Crocodile Dundee, but the...

A wacky film based on a stage show by comedians Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, Dicks: The Musical – a riff on The Parent Trap with two adult men as the starring twins — opens in seven theaters in NY, LA and San Francisco on a crowded specialty weekend as theatrical releases of fall film festival titles accelerates.

Dicks, from A24, developed by Chernin Entertainment, is, according to press notes, a first “adult musical comedy” for both. (It’s Chernin’s second musical after hit The Greatest Showman.) Directed by Larry Charles, it stars the two creators Jackson and Sharp as self-obsessed businessmen who discover they’re long-lost identical twins and come together to plot the reunion of their eccentric divorced parents. They’re joined by an A-list roster of Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, Bowen Yang and Megan Thee Stallion.

A SAG-AFTRA interim agreement allowed the talent to promote the film at TIFF,...

Universal Pictures Content Group will release the title in UK, France, Germany and Italy.

Kitty Green’s thriller The Royal Hotel has been snapped up by Universal Pictures Content Group across several key international territories, including UK, France, Germany and Italy.

The thriller has enjoyed critical acclaim during a buzzy festival run across Telluride, Toronto and San Sebastian, and is playing in competition at BFI London Film Festival, where it premieres on October 6. The film will be released in UK and Ireland cinemas on November 3.

It reunites Australian writer-director Green with US actor Julia Garner, following their collaboration in Green’s 2019 drama,...

The Royal Hotel’s Kitty Green and Julia Garner want to keep a good thing going.

Following their 2019 drama The Assistant, the Australian filmmaker and her thrice-Emmy-winning American star are back with another critically acclaimed film in The Royal Hotel, which again examines power dynamics between men and women, as well as microaggressions from the female perspective.

Based on the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie and co-written by Green and Oscar Redding, The Royal Hotel begins with Garner’s Hanna and Jessica Henwick’s Liv enjoying themselves on an Australian vacation. The two American friends then abruptly run out of money and are forced to work at a run-down pub in the remote Australian outback so they can make enough cash to resume their R and R. The pair soon have very different reactions to the alcoholic pub owner (Hugo Weaving) and his regular clientele of local miners, and those aforementioned microaggressions...

“They’re all nice for a minute,” says Kitty Green, director of the sizzling thriller The Royal Hotel. She’s talking about the men that make up most of the film’s ensemble cast — Australian miners in a remote, rugged, Outback town — who can pivot from playful pub banter to grinning malevolence without warning. What might they do after one pint too many?

It’s a question any young woman tending bar has asked herself, and in Green’s frighteningly plausible tale, the heavily outnumbered women serving these men drinks...

Deep in the Australian Outback, Kitty Green is, once again, asking us to sit on a knife’s edge, where the threat of violence is constant. In The Assistant, which also starred Julia Garner as a headstrong underling in an environment dominated by men, Green was attuned to the systemic abuses of the entertainment industry. In The Royal Hotel, she considers the ways infrastructural inequities pervade even in the most remote corners of our world.

Green’s film is loosely based on the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie, in which director Pete Gleeson provided a glimpse into a remote mining town where backpackers are cycled in and out as bartenders, or, as a sandwich board labels them in The Royal Hotel, “fresh meat” to be ogled at and harassed. Here, that fresh meat is Hanna (Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick), two American tourists who’ve desperately sought out a work-tourism exchange program...

“The Royal Hotel,” the setting of Kitty Green’s ulcer-inducing thriller, is a sun-baked bar in a rural Australian mining town surrounded by terrain so monotone that Canadian backpackers Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) can’t keep their eyes open on the way in. The two young women arrive at their barmaid jobs with a sense of palpable disorientation. They’ve quite literally woken up in Oz, and they don’t know the people, the customs, the nicknames for the local ales, or the way out.

The customers are, as you might expect, gruff and girl-starved. (The chalkboard sign heralding their first shift reads: “Fresh meat.”) Hanna and Liv are steeled for that. They’re not idiots, even if their knowledge of Australia is pretty much limited to Fosters beer and kangaroos. Still, Green, a keen and steely talent, puts them — and us — through hell.

The worst part?...

For the first minute of The Royal Hotel trailer everything seems fine. But then the tone suddenly shifts, and everything about the environment Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick’s characters find themselves in turns menacing.

Julia Garner (Ozark) stars as Hanna, Jessica Henwick (Glass Onion) is Liv, Toby Wallace (The Society) plays Matty, and Hugo Weaving (the Lord of the Rings films) is Billy. The cast also includes Ursula Yovich as Carol, Daniel Henshall as Dolly, James Frecheville as Teeth, and Herbert Nordrum as Torsten.

The Royal Hotel writer/director Kitty Green made her feature film directorial debut with 2019’s critically acclaimed The Assistant, which also starred Julia Garner. Oscar Redding co-wrote the screenplay, Michael Latham is the director of photography, Leah Popple is the production designer, Mariot Kerr is the costume designer, and Kasra Rassoulzadegan is the editor.

Neon offered this description of the thriller:

“Americans Hanna and Liv...

Telluride – The most intriguing aspect of Kitty Green’s new thriller “The Royal Hotel” is what she doesn’t tell you. Set in a town in the middle of the Australian outback, this is a movie that simmers in culture clashes, dangerous misogyny, and sexual tension. Green, who co-wrote the screenplay with Oscar Redding, is playing mind games with two visiting Americans, Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) awash in preconceived notions.

Continue reading ‘The Royal Hotel’ Review: Julia Garner Impresses In Aussie Outback Thriller [Telluride] at The Playlist.

Julia Garner needs no assistance leading a chilling thriller.

The “Ozark” breakout star reunites with her “The Assistant” writer/director Kitty Green for Neon’s “The Royal Hotel.”

Per the official synopsis, Americans Hanna (Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called The Royal Hotel in a remote Outback mining town. Bar owner Billy (Hugo Weaving) and a host of locals give the girls a riotous introduction to Down Under drinking culture but soon Hanna and Livy find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that grows rapidly out of their control.

Toby Wallace, Ursula Yovich, Daniel Henshall, James Frecheville, and Herbert Nordrum also star. “The Royal Hotel” premiered at Telluride and is produced by lain Canning, Emile Sherman, Liz Watts, and Kath Shelper.

In Kitty Green’s brilliant narrative feature debut “The Assistant,” it would have been appropriate for the film’s mostly silent and tormented junior associate (Julia Garner) to pick up an axe or burn down the whole damn place in response to the emotional torture she’d been subjected to in an unglamorous yet high-profile film production office.

Structured with metronomic perfection, “The Assistant” wasn’t that thriller, however—instead, it was a quietly harrowing one that kept you screaming on the inside. “The Royal Hotel,” on the other hand, is that thriller where Green flexes her genre muscles impeccably.

Also starring a flawless Julia Garner—this time, alongside an equally terrific Jessica Henwick—Green’s sophomore narrative is once again focused on the distresses and perils of being a young woman in the world, polluted by the dangerous gaze and entitlement of men. It’s a wild ride start to finish,...

Four years after director Kitty Green and actor Julia Garner channeled whispers and silence into the stuff of workplace horror in The Assistant, they reunite for a movie that turns up the volume and ratchets up the fear and loathing. Way up.

Instead of the careerist corridors of Manhattan, the setting is a mining town in Australia — specifically, a hotel bar frequented by hard-drinking men. Garner, again, is extraordinary, and the chemistry between her and an equally superb Jessica Henwick, as best friends whose backpacking adventure takes a detour into a kind of hell, doesn’t hit a false note. Yet despite the flawless performances and outstanding craftsmanship, The Royal Hotel is a pummeling experience rather than a revelatory one.

For her second narrative feature, and her first film set and filmed in her native Australia, Green was inspired by the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie, in which Pete Gleeson chronicles the...

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival. Neon releases the film in theaters on Friday, October 6.

Following 2019’s deeply unnerving “The Assistant” with another razor-sharp Julia Garner collaboration, Australian filmmaker Kitty Green has decided to strand her favorite actress in one of the few places on Earth more dangerous for a young woman than Harvey Weinstein’s production office: A shithole bar on the border of an ultra-remote mining town so deep within the Australian outback that no one there has even heard of the #MeToo movement. Welcome to “The Royal Hotel.”

The good news is that Garner’s character isn’t alone; Hanna’s on an open-ended vacation with her friend Liv (Jessica Henwick) when the two run out of money on a party boat in Sydney and decide to sign up for the last Work & Travel job available. The bad news is...

Extraordinary Host

Korean actors Lee Je Hoon and Park Eun-bin, star of “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” are set as hosts of the opening ceremony at the Busan International Film Festival. The event will take place on the evening of Oct. 4 at the purpose-built Busan Cinema Center.

Park performed as the first cross-dressing queen in a Korean historical drama with “The King’s Affection” in 2021 and cemented her position as the lead of hit contemporary drama series “Extraordinary Attorney Woo.”

Lee emerged as a rising star with his intense performances in films such as “Bleak Night “(2011), “The Front Line” (2011) and “Architecture 101” (2012). Following that, he showcased a broad range of acting skills in various genres, as seen in films “Anarchist From Colony” (2017), “I Can Speak” (2017) and “Time to Hunt.”

The pair previously shared the screen in the 2014 drama series “Secret Door.“

The festival runs Oct. 4-13.

Mix Tape Memories

Binge, the streaming arm of Australian pay-tv group Foxtel,...

HanWay and Cross City Films handle international sales on the social thriller.

Neon has acquired North American rights for Kitty Green’s social thriller The Royal Hotel produced by See-Saw Films, starring Julia Garner, Hugo Weaving and Jessica Henwick.

Green and Garner will be reunited after starring together in Green’s The Assistant which premiered at the 2019 Telluride Film Festival and earned the director an Independent Spirit Award nomination.

Inspired by true events, the film follows best friends backpacking in Australia who take a temporary live-in job at The Royal Hotel pub in a remote mining town. But when the pair meet the bar owner,...

Neon said Wednesday that it has acquired North American rights to The Royal Hotel, the social thriller that marks the next film from The Assistant writer-director Kitty Green. Her Assistant star Julia Garner will topline the pic alongside Jessica Henwick. Hugo Weaving also stars.

The pic, which will start shooting this summer in Australia, hails from See-Saw Films, which most recently produced the Oscar-nominated The Power of the Dog.

Inspired by true events, the The Royal Hotel revolves around Hanna (Garner) and Liv (Henwick), best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called The Royal Hotel in a remote Outback mining town. Bar Owner Billy (Weaving) and a host of locals give the girls a riotous introduction to Down Under drinking culture, but things turn nasty when their...

Neon has snapped up the North American rights to “The Royal Hotel,” directed by “The Assistant” helmer Kitty Green and produced by See-Saw Films.

Billed as social thriller, the film stars two-time Emmy winner Julia Garner, AFI winner Hugo Weaving and Jessica Henwick.

“The Royal Hotel” reunites Green with her “Assistant” star Garner. “The Assistant” dealt with the broken culture at a film production company, where women are regularly sexually harassed by higher-ups. The film premiered at the 2019 Telluride Film Festival and earned Garner an Independent Spirit Award nomination.

Inspired by true events, “The Royal Hotel” follows Hanna (Garner) and Liv (Henwick) who are best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called “The Royal Hotel” in a remote Outback mining town.

Bar owner Billy (Weaving) and a...

Writer-director Kitty Green is collaborating again with “The Assistant” lead star Julia Garner for the upcoming social thriller “The Royal Hotel,” which will now be distributed by Neon in the U.S.

“The Royal Hotel” follows Hanna (Garner) and her best friend Liv (Jessica Henwick) as they backpack throughout Australia. However, after running out of money, Liv convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called The Royal Hotel in a remote Outback mining town. The bar owner Billy (Hugo Weaving) and a group of local patrons introduce the women to Down Under drinking culture, but things take a different turn once their behavior begins to cross a line.

Per the official synopsis, “Liv and Hanna find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that grows rapidly out of their control.”

Neon landed the North American rights to the film, with HanWay and Cross City Films handling international sales.

“Matrix” stars Jessica Henwick and Hugo Weaving may never have shared a screen in the sci-fi mega-franchise but fans will no doubt be thrilled to learn the duo will be uniting for Kitty Green’s upcoming thriller “The Royal Hotel.”

Henwick and Weaving join “Inventing Anna” star Julia Garner in the See-Saw Films production, which is based on a true story. Green and Garner previously collaborated on Green’s breakout hit “The Assistant,” which was inspired by the dramatic fall of Harvey Weinstein.

In “The Royal Hotel,” Garner plays Hannah who, alongside her best friend Liv (Henwick) goes backpacking in Australia. After running out of money the women take a live-in job in The Royal Hotel, a bar located in a remote mining town in the Australian outback.

Billy, the bar’s owner (played by Weaving) doesn’t hesitate to introduce the women to Australia’s hard-core drinking culture...

Julia Garner also set to star in social thriller from See-Saw Films.

UK outfit HanWay Films has boarded international sales for Kitty Green’s upcoming thriller The Royal Hotel, with Hugo Weaving and Jessica Henwick joining Julia Garner in the cast.

Produced by See-Saw Films, HanWay Films will handle international sales and distribution in partnership with Cross City Films, See-Saw’s in-house sales arm. UTA Independent Film Group and Cross City Films are co-representing the US sale.

HanWay will commence sales this week with an online filmmaker presentation.

The feature reunites Ozark and Inventing Anna star Garner with Australian filmmaker Green,...

Jessica Henwick (The Matrix Resurrections) and Hugo Weaving (Patrick Melrose) have joined the cast of The Royal Hotel, Kitty Green’s social thriller following two friends backpacking in Australia.

Julia Garner (Inventing Anna) also stars, having previously fronted director Green’s breakout pic The Assistant. Garner and Green play the duo who end up at the titular Royal Hotel, a locals bar where they find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation.

The Royal Hotel is being produced by Emile Sherman and Iain Canning of See-Saw Films Liz Watts, See-Saw Films’ Head of Film and Television (Aus), and Scarlett Pictures’ Kath Shelper. Green co-wrote the script with Oscar Redding (Van Diemen’s Land). The project starts shooting this summer in Australia.

HanWay Films has come on board to handle international sales and distribution in partnership with Cross City Films, See-Saw’s in-house sales arm. UTA Independent Film Group and Cross City Films are co-repping the U.

It’ll be Van Diemen’s Land and The Assistant reunion of sorts for Kitty Green this summer as the filmmaker will reteam with actor (and here co-scribe) Oscar Redding and actress Julia Garner on a fourth feature film/ second back to back feature film project. Titled The Royal Hotel, this Australian backed project will begin production this coming summer and we expect a co-lead actress to be attached any minute now that the news has dropped. See-Saw Films’ Emile Sherman, Iain Canning, Liz Watts and Kath Shelper are producing. Simon Gillis will exec produce.

We’ve been fans of Green’s experi-docu beginnings with 2013’s Ukraine Is Not a Brothel, her 2015 short The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul and a whole new take on a communal town psyche in Casting JonBenet (2017).…...

Exclusive: Inventing Anna and Ozark star Julia Garner isn’t looking to slow down, as she is set to star in The Royal Hotel, sources tell Deadline. The film reteams Garner with Kitty Green, who helmed The Assistant, which earned Garner an Independent Spirit Award nomination.

Green is directing Royal Hotel and co-writing the script with Oscar Redding. The pic will be produced by See-Saw Films, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning, Liz Watts, Kath Shelper, can you please add in all of the producers, it is important they are all credited as well as See-Saw Films . Simon Gillis will exec produce.

The story follows American backpackers Hannah and her friend Sydney, who resort to a working holiday at the Royal Hotel, a bar in a tiny, male-dominated mining town deep in the Australian Outback. The hotel is notorious for cycling through young female employees every few months, and it isn’t...

Rectify's Aden Young, Aaron Pedersen, Oscar Redding and Chris Sommers are part of the ensemble cast attached to a violent Outback thriller to be directed by Jonathan auf der Heide.

An unofficial Australian-uk co-production, Mongrel is due to start shooting in South East Queensland late this year, with post in the UK.

Scripted by Brit Ross Williams, the plot follows Doug Richards (Young), a family man who embarks on a pig-hunting weekend with his mates.

The weekend turns into a nightmare as the hunting dogs savagely attack a young couple from the city. Torn between loyalty and doing the right thing, Richards must choose between an escalation in violence or facing his own death.

Pedersen is cast as a detective, Redding is a bad-ass professional pig hunter and Sommers is a local would-be tough guy.

The producers are New Holland Pictures Two's Mark Overett (The Fear of Darkness, Iron Sky...

Tim Winton.s The Turning has sold more than $200,000 worth of tickets before its September 26 debut on 16 screens around Australia.

That.s an impressive figure and a just reward for the release strategy by the co-distributors, producer Robert Connolly.s CinemaPlus and Madman Entertainment.

That sum has been generated by advance ticket sales, a few screenings before the official launch, and the proceeds of its world premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

.We are feeling very positive about the early response to this unique cinema event,. Madman.s Paul Wiegard told If. .To see such strong numbers coming through from such a select and targeted release is fantastic. We at Madman and CinemaPlus have done our best to create something new and exciting for cinema audiences, not just with what is on the screen but in the experience that surrounds it. These early numbers indicate that audiences around the...

Advance tickets went on on sale at 12 midday today, Friday, for Tim Winton.s The Turning as anticipation builds for the world premiere on Saturday at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

The innovative film consisting of 17 stories based on Winton.s novel, each with a different director, premieres nationally on September 26, with two weeks of event screenings in the capital cities.

The three-hour film will be presented with an intermission and there will be Q&A sessions with the directors and stars. Attendees in those two weeks will get a 40-page programme and ticket prices will cost a few dollars more than normal, reflecting the event nature.

Robert Connolly, who conceived the idea and produced the film with Maggie Miles, is distributing The Turning in a co-venture between his firm CinemaPlus and Madman Entertainment.

Tickets are available via the website www.theturningmovie.com.au. The venues include the Cremorne Orpheum,...

Hot on the heels of news that Mark Leonard Winter is leading the cast of One Eyed Girl, we hear that his fellow Van Diemen's Land cannibal buddy Oscar Redding is one of the lead cast in Galore, a drama which also begins shooting this week in Australia.This is great news for all us fans of Van Diemen's Land - not to mention the police and penis webseries Cop Hard, which Oscar wrote and co-directed. Great to see him getting his due up on the big screen again. Shot in the Australian capital, Canberra, Galore follows four teenagers whose lives are thrown together late one night ahead of the devastating bushfires of 2002. Oscar is obviously not playing one of the teenagers. Written and directed by Ryhs...

Australian feature film Galore has begun filming in Canberra.

The film, written and directed by Rhys Graham, follows four teenagers whose lives are thrown together late one night ahead of the devastating bushfires of 2002. It stars Ashleigh Cummings (Tomorrow When The War Began), Toby Wallace (Nim.s Island 2), Lily Sullivan (Mental), Aliki Matangi, Maya Stange (Garage Days) and Oscar Redding (Van Dieman.s Land).

Galore is being produced by Philippa Campey (Bastardy) and executive produced by Sue Murray, Victoria Treole and Eleonora Granata-Jenkinson.

Campey said Galore was an intensely personal film for Graham.

"His screenplay, which has such a strong sense of place given his intimacy with the very particular world of Canberra.s outer suburbs, is a work of incredible beauty and power," Campey said in a statement.

Galore, which has received financial support from Screen Australia, Screen Act, Film Victoria, the Miff Premiere Fund and Deluxe, will be...

Screen Australia has committed almost $700,000 in development support across 23 feature projects.

Fifteen new projects have been added to Screen Australia.s development slate, while eight teams will receive continued support to develop their projects.

Two Australian filmmakers will also be supported to undertake overseas internships: producer Ma.ara Bobby Romia will work for six months with Screentime Group in New Zealand and director Ariel Martin-Merrells will work under the mentorship of director James Foley in Los Angeles for five months.

Screen Australia.s head of development Martha Coleman said in a statement: .Following a now well-established tradition, the development slate announced today includes a diverse range of compelling stories from both established and emerging filmmakers. The high calibre of screenplays coming through our door backs up positive feedback we are getting from the domestic and international marketplace and I.m looking forward to seeing the best of these projects make...

The story of Rupert Murdoch’s rise to become the world’s biggest media mogul looks set to become an Australian TV telemovie,

Screen Australia has provided funding development for the work which is being written by Bob Ellis and Stephen Ramsay.

The announcement comes days after Southern Star’s production of Howzat, the story of how Australian media mogul Kerry Packer took on the cricket establishment delivered the Nine Network with 2m+ ratings.

The series has the working title of The News of the World.

The British Sunday tabloid the telemovie is named after was closed by Murdoch last year in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

Bob Ellis wrote the Australian journalism drama Newsfront and most recently ABC’s Infamous Victory: Ben Chifley’s Battle for Coal while Stephen Ramsey wrote and directed The Baby Boomers Picture Show and Flashbacks.

Ellis told Mumbrella: “What we have...

He's gone undercover as a stripper. He's gone undercover in hell. And now Detective Larry Hard's pursuit of The Bearded Clown lands him undercover in prison. Can he adapt? Can he learn the various rules? Can he create a variety of new sexual positions? Of course he can, this is Larry Hard we're talking about.The latest episode of Charles C Custer's increasingly bizarre web series lurks below. Keep your eyes open for a cameo by Van Diemen's Land writer and star Oscar Redding!...

I have now seen more of Larry Hard's ass than I particularly felt the need to. Episode Four of Charles C Custer's action-comedy web series Cop Hard - produced by Jonathan Auf Der Heide and Oscar Redding of Van Diemen's Land - is now online and this one sees Detective Larry Hard move from an undercover stint as a (female) stripper last week to a high speed foot chase dressed bewilderingly as a Plains Indian. Important Note: Vaulting fences while wearing only a loin cloth is not the prettiest thing in the world.Throw in a school girl tied to a pole next to a bomb and you've got an episode chock full of excitement and naked loins!A cop show that crashes Hill Street Blues...

Detective Larry Hard and his erstwhile partner Fuzz go deep undercover in Episode Three of Charles C Custer's Cop Hard. Never prone to making sensible decisions Custer pushes his web series to new heights of absurdity with this one and it's pretty glorious to behold. More spontaneous dance numbers, please.Van Diemen's Land creative team Jonathan Auf Der Heide and Oscar Redding produce. Watch the new episode below....

As far as representations of Australia are concerned Jonathan auf der Heide's cannibal drama Van Diemen's Land is about as distanced from the cinematic clichés as possible. No dusty outback, no golden sands, no aborigines and certainly no cans of Fosters over a BBQ. Though unsurprisingly, there is some form of cooked meat on offer. Vdl is concerned with plunging the audience into a very different antipodean environment - an oppressive, dense and seemingly endless mass of forested countryside that to the untrained eye isn't Australia at all, or at least not that of common screen incarnations. It's clearly a matter of perspective (and experience) but when I think of Australia in the movies, I immediately think of Nic Roeg's sublime Walkabout.

Set in what would later become known as Tasmania (the titular Van Diemen's Land) during colonial rule, this dark and foreboding film centers on a group of...

We’ve been hearing good things about writer-director Jonathan auf der Heide’s debut feature - a gritty, grisly tale of murder and eventually cannibalism - Van Diemen’s Land, so we thought it worth a mention that the film is due for release in the UK on DVD. The movie stars Oscar Redding, Arthur Angel and Paul Ashcroft, in telling the true story of Australia’s most notorious convict, Alexander Pearce, and his infamous escape into the brutal interior of Van Diemen’s Land (aka Tasmania). Watching the trail the whole thing has definite dark and foreboding feel, with some jaw-dropping cinematography. This has the looks of a survival horror, all grown up. Vdl goes on sale in the UK in May. Synopsis: A point of no return for convicts banished from their homeland for repeated crimes, Van Diemen's Land was a feared and dreaded penal settlement situated in...

Movies about cannibalism come in two (and a half) distinct varieties. They'll either go the exploitation/entertainment route with films like Cannibal Holocaust, Sweeney Todd, and Delicatessen, or they'll go for the dramatic angle with films like Alive and Keep The River On Your Right. (The remaining one half is the rare combination of the two and my favorite of the genre... Ravenous).  The dramatic ones are usually more powerful as they present an uncompromising and bleak look at one of the rawer aspects of humanity. They ask what it would take and how long we might last before the darkness within us all rises up and usurps not only the rule of law and common decency, but our table manners as well... In 1822 Tasmania a group of prisoners escape from their captor and head off into the wilderness toward freedom. At least that was the plan. Instead the group find a never-ending landscape of mountains, woodlands...

Showing our support for independent film, we invite you to have a look at Bavaria Film International's "Van Diemen's Land," starring Oscar Redding, Arthur Angel, Mark Leonard Winter, Paul Ashcroft, Torquil Neilson, Thomas Wright and Greg Stone. The drama opens Septemnber 24th in limited locations. Jonathan auf der Heide makes his feature-length directorial debut on the prject after a single credit for the short "Hell's Gates" last year. The true story of Australia’s most notorious convict, Alexander Pearce and his infamous journey into the beautiful yet brutal Tasmanian wilderness. A point of no return for convicts banished from their homeland, Van Diemen’s Land was a feared and dreaded penal settlement at the end of the earth. In 1822...

Year: 2009

Directors: Jonathan Auf Der Heide

Writers: Jonathan Auf Der Heide & Oscar Redding

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Review by: projectcyclops

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Van Diemen's Land is the feature debut by Tasmanian director, Jonathan auf der Heide, a full-length adaptation of his short, Hell’s Gates. The film, set in the year 1882, tells the story of a group of convicts who manage to escape from a penal colony in ‘Van Diemen’s land’ (British occupied Tasmania). The group is made up of several Irish and Scottish men, and one understandably put upon Englishman. They traverse the brutal landscape in a futile attempt to reach Macquarie Harbour, where they hope to find a ship, and escape the island.

The retelling of a true story, in which the group succumbed to in-fighting, violence, extreme hunger and life threatening injuries, eventually breaking down and falling into a revolting pattern of murder and cannibalism,...