Adelaide Film Festival revenge movie The Nightingale brings praise and outrage in Venice

AN Adelaide Film Festival movie is at the centre of a sexist outburst at the Venice Film Festival, after its director was labelled a “whore”.

Actors Sam Claflin and Aisling Francoisi, director Jennifer Kent and actor Baykali Ganambarr at the premiere of the film "The Nightingale" at the Venice Film Festival. Picture: Filippo Monteforte / AFP

AN Adelaide Film Festival movie is at the centre of a sexist outburst at the Venice Film Festival, after its director was labelled a “whore”.

The Nightingale, directed by Australian Jennifer Kent, is a story about revenge and friendship involving an Irish convict woman and an Aboriginal tracker in colonial Tasmania.

In Venice for its world premiere, it had critics reaching for comparisons with Jane Campion’s 1993 masterpiece The Piano.

But the first screening of Kent’s haunting evocation of the brutality of the former penal colony, whose original inhabitants were all but wiped out in a genocide, was marred by racist and sexist abuse hurled at its makers.

After confronting scenes at the end of the film, audiences applauded a particular death.

Then, as Kent’s name came up in the credits, one man shouted: “Shame on you, whore! Your film sucks.”

A young Italian director, whose festival accreditation was withdrawn, later apologised for the “deplorable insult”, saying it was “not meant to be misogynist”.

But Kent, a Brisbane-born actor-turned-director, refused to be provoked, telling reporters her film proved the “absolute importance of reacting with compassion and love to ignorance”.

Jennifer Kent on set of The Nightingale.

Aisling Franciosi as Irish convict Clare in The Nightingale.

“We see other options played out and they gave no succour or relief,” said Kent, whose earlier film, The Babadook, was filmed at Adelaide Studios. “Love, compassion and kindness are our lifeline and if we don’t utilise them we will all go down the plughole.”

The Nightingale, a centrepiece of next month’s Adelaide Film Festival,was supported by the AFF Fund and the South Australian Film Corporation.

Kent is the only woman among 21 directors vying for the top prize in Venice. Variety called The Nightingale “a magnificent mass of movie … an elemental revenge tale (of) near-mythic grandeur”.

Critic Jessica Kiang, of The Playlist website, said that with judicious cuts to “pare it back to its thrilling and beautiful essentials, The Nightingale will really sing”.

AFF director Amanda Duthie said she couldn’t wait to show the film to audiences in Adelaide for the first time. “It’s made with so much respect,” she said. “We want to make films that will have a response with an audience and if this generates debate and curiosity about our history ... that is a fantastic thing.”

Kent said it was “incredibly important” that audiences be shocked by the film’s brutality.

“I hope horror and beauty exist side by side,” she said. “But we are so numbed and anaesthetised to cinema violence.”

Rising Irish-Italian star Aisling Franciosi, of The Fall fame, said she never realised quite how violent the penal colony was, particularly towards women who were outnumbered eight to one.

– with AFP

Originally published as Adelaide Film Festival revenge movie The Nightingale brings praise and outrage in Venice