Must-see Australian films at MIFF

AN eclectic bunch of new Australian titles are screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Joel Edgerton and Melissa George in a scene from Australian film Felony

THERE must have been something in the water early last year.

While Queensland’s Spierig brothers were in Melbourne with US star Ethan Hawke shooting the film Predestination — a sci-fi thriller about a law enforcement officer who travels back in time to catch an elusive criminal — first time feature-maker Hugh Sullivan was in South Australia shooting The Infinite Man — a rom-com about a scientist who travels back in time to fix his relationship with his girlfriend.

Both movies have since travelled through time (and editing) to emerge for their Australian premieres at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Predestination and The Infinite Man join an eclectic bunch of new Australian titles screening at the fest, including crime dramas Cut Snake and Felony, action flick Turkey Shoot and kids’ adventure Paper Planes.

Josh McConville, who in his first lead movie role plays Infinite Man’s useless-at-love scientist Dean, says it took some effort to wrap his head around the story’s time-travelling mayhem.

“I was confused,” he admits with a laugh. “We had a week of rehearsals where we sat down and drew diagrams and nutted it out. But still, even when we were shooting, I had to stop and ask Hugh, ‘Which Dean am I playing right now?’.”

Sarah Snook in “Predestination”.

Best known for his theatre work (he’ll star in the Brendan Cowell’s The Sublime for the MTC next month), McConville is one of only three actors in the film — Hannah Marshall plays Dean’s girlfriend, Lana, while Alex Dimitriades has a ball as her javelin-throwing ex, Terry.

Yet when all three get stuck in a temporal loop, multiple Deans, Lanas and Terrys wind up running around a deserted hotel.

“We had Dean 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Each Dean has a different objective and a particular quality — a hopelessness or a positively,” McConville explains. “The first Dean is the most normal out of the lot and the second is the worst. Or was the fifth one the worst? I can’t remember now ...”

The Infinite Man received great reviews when it premiered at US festival SXSW in March. While some actors would be on the first plane to LA to capitalise on the hype, McConville has no plans as yet.

“Thinking into the future scares me a little after doing The Infinite Man,” he laughs.

While The Infinite Man bends time for laughs, Predestination is more an outright mind-bender.

Directors Michael and Peter Spierig — who Ethan Hawke previously worked with on 2010s Daybreakers — have worked hard until now to keep the complex, ambitious storyline under wraps. Hawke gets the desire for secrecy.

“If ever you say, ‘Hey, lightning is gonna strike over here’, you can sure as hell bet it won’t,” he says. “It’s much better to talk about a movie once it really is good, rather than telling people it’s gonna be good.”

Ethan Hawke in “Predestination”.

Hawke’s “Temporal Agent” jumps through time periods from the 1940s to 1980s, with the film’s retro-futuristic vision of the ’60s being particularly stunning to look at.

Predestination also debuted at SXSW, where US reviewers heaped most praise onto Hawke’s co-star, rising Australian talent Sarah Snook (Not Suitable For Children, Clementine).

Snook in turn throws plenty of praise back on the film.

“It’s so much better than I imagined. I didn’t believe it would come to fruition so seamlessly. It’s slick, which is awesome,” she says.

“The thing I’m most proud of is, it’s a time travel film but it’s set in the past — usually time travel films are set in the future. All the costumes, looks and references for the eras, the visuals, tell the story. It’s really spot on.”

MORE TOP AUSSIE FLICKS

TURKEY SHOOT
This remake of the 1982 cult flick (Quentin Tarantino counts the original among his favourites) will have its world premiere as part of MIFF’s Night Shift program. Shot around Melbourne, it stars two expat Aussies: Dominic Purcell as a disgraced Navy SEAL given the chance to win his freedom in a vicious reality TV show, and Viva Bianca as a military commander who sides with the outnumbered “turkey” in his battle to survive. Written by husband and wife team Jon Hewitt and Belinda McClory, Turkey Shoot also winks to fans of the original by bringing back Carmen Duncan and Roger Ward in cameo roles. “We want to make a crackerjack, fast-moving, primal action movie that delivers the goods to its target demographic — people who just wanna go on this fast ride and be a bit shocked,” Hewitt says. “But underneath it, there’s something going on to make you think — are they saying that the military is lying to us and running the world?”

Viva Bianca and Dominic Purcell in “Turkey Shoot”.

CUT SNAKE
One of two MIFF films to star Melbourne actor Sullivan Stapleton, who had a huge international hit earlier this year with 300: Rise Of an Empire. Described as a “sexy crime thriller”, Cut Snake is set in the 1970s, which meant plenty of lairy shirts and a wide-lapelled brown leather jacket for Stapleton, who laughs that he thought he was seeing his dad from old family photos every time he looked in the mirror. The film also stars Alex Russell as Sparra, a young man trying to make a new life for himself with his fiancee (Jessica De Gouw). But their world is rocked by the arrival of Pommie, a mate from Sparra’s violent criminal past. “He’s not the nicest of blokes,” Stapleton says of his character, Pommie. “We pick him up and he’s been released from prison and he just wants to find his mate and entice him back into the only life that he knows.”

Sullivan Stapleton in “Cut Snake”.

FELONY
MIFF’s closing night gala will bring home Felony’s writer and star Joel Edgerton, who has been in the US shooting Black Mass with Johnny Depp. He’ll walk the red carpet with director Matthew Saville. Edgerton plays a police officer who hits someone with his car while off duty, then is convinced by a superior (Tom Wilkinson) to cover it up. Jai Courtney plays the detective determined to find the truth. Courtney, who is in the US filming the new Terminator movie, fought to get the Felony role. “We chased it hard. I really, really wanted to do it and it’s great to be able to come back home and work with such incredible people on a piece I feel really passionate about. Joel’s great to work with. He’s clearly a very talented guy and someone whose career I’ve tracked forever as a young actor in Australia.”

Joel Edgerton and Melissa George in “Felony”.

PREMIERE SHOWCASE
MIFF will go regional by taking new Aussie features to Mildura, Bendigo, Geelong and Sorrento via its Premiere Showcase program in August-September. The Showcase line-up includes Robert Connolly’s family film Paper Planes as well as Electric Boogaloo, Cut Snake, Galore, My Mistress and a big premiere city-slicker MIFF-goers won’t get: Kriv Stenders’ Red Dog follow-up, Kill Me Three Times. The blackly comic tale of murder and revenge is led by British funnyman Simon Pegg as a hitman along with locals Bryan Brown, Teresa Palmer and Luke Hemsworth. Sullivan Stapleton was lured on board by the film’s Australian attitude. “Half the reason I wanted to do Kill Me Three Times is there’s a line in that script: ‘Don’t come the raw prawn with me, mate’. When I read that, I was in Budapest or Africa or something and I was trying to explain it to people. It was pretty funny to be the only Aussie, going, ‘It means don’t bulls--- me’. People are going, ‘How the hell does that mean don’t bulls--- me?’.”

Simon Pegg in Kriv Stenders’ film “Kill Me Three Times”.

The Melbourne International Film Festival runs from July 31 to August 17. Full program and bookings at miff.com.au.