Bana year ahead as Aussie films queued up to end big dry

Epic, sun-baked vistas, regional Australian characters bristling with authenticity, and Hollywood A-lister Eric Bana back in his first home-grown film role in 13 years.

Country boy at heart … actor Eric Bana who stars in the soon-to-be-released, all-Australian film The Dry, with his beloved 1954 Ford F-100 pick-up. Picture: Rebecca Bana

Epic, sun-baked vistas, regional Australian characters bristling with authenticity, and Hollywood A-lister Eric Bana back in his first home-grown film role in 13 years.

That should do it, says director Robert Connolly. That should be enough to lure film fans from their COVID-19 cocoons when ­murder-mystery The Dry opens in cinemas on new year’s day.

“It’s been such a shocking year for a lot of people and this is a film about us,” says Connolly, who’s had success with Balibo and Paper Planes.

“It’s a big commercial film for a big Australian audience. Every single actor is Australian, and it’s all shot here with Australian locations. We’ve been home watching streaming services all year, but we have such a great tradition of going to the cinema, especially during the festive season, and this is a film that’s meant to be seen in cinemas.”

Pummelled by the plague, stricken by streaming, the Australian film industry is banking on a big-screen revival next year with a slew of films kicking off early, including Penguin Bloom on January 21, High Ground on January 28 and documentary Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra on February 18.

The Dry also plays into Australians’ pandemic-prompted engagement with the regions. Based on Jane Harper’s bestselling novel, it was filmed entirely in the Wimmera region of Victoria, an expanse of unforgiving terrain dear to Melbourne-based Bana’s heart.

“We were really determined to fully location shoot the film,” says the star of blockbusters Hulk, Troy and Munich. “We based ourselves four hours out of Melbourne and everyone lived there for the whole (three months).

“It was a deliberate attempt to depict a small country town realistically, in a way that people from a small country town would identify with, as opposed to a kind of generic depiction that fulfils the category in the eyes of a foreigner.”

Bana plays a loner city cop who returns to his struggling farming community to investigate a murder-suicide involving a childhood friend. Off-duty, Bana is a renowned aficionado of vintage cars and dirt bikes and frequently escapes the city on his BMW R1200 Adventure motorcycle to hit the 4WD trails of regional Victoria.

“It always really frustrates and pains me that not more people get to do it,” he says. “I understand not everyone has the time and is as frequently unemployed as myself but it’s just really worth the effort. I’m forever coming home with photos and little videos to show to family and friends saying, ‘You’ve got to go here, you’ve got to go to this place’.”

With international borders shut for the foreseeable future, he expects to see many more of his countrymen exploring their vast backyard. “Let’s hope there’s a huge surge of that over the next 12 months,” he says.