Dead Europe
Colin Delaney, Encore
Magazine, reports
A new Australian
film, announced on Wednesday in Competition at the Sydney Film Festival, will
see a modest, art house release.
Liz Watts, producer
for Dead Europe told Encore: “I think Dead Europe is a niche film. It’s not
going to be a wide release,” adding that it would receive targeted marketing
support.
Watts added: “It will have a 35-years and over audience. It will be a
sophisticated release [but], we haven’t got a firm fix on the number of
screens.”
“We’d be trying to
use lots of methods for audiences to find out about the film. When marketing,
the internet plays a huge role.”
Directed by Tony
Krawitz, it was adapted by Louise Fox from a novel of the same name by Christos
Tsiolkas, the author of The Slap. Watts said to capture that 35-plus audience,
they’ll also be ‘unashamedly’ using Tsiolkas’ name, who worked closely with Fox
on the adaptation.
Watts said the cast
should also be a draw card, including lead Ewen Leslie. “He’s well known in the
theatre scene, but he’s now going from film role to film role.” The film also
features Kodi Smit-McPhee from The Road.
Watts also said the
topicality of the film will also be marketed. “It has a newsworthy feel,” she
said.
The story, about an
Australian who retraces his roots to Europe and discovers his family is cursed,
originally used the fighting of the former Yugoslavia as a backdrop, but has
been contemporised to use the Greek financial crisis as a backdrop instead.
Krawitz told Encore:
“We were fortuitous to be able to film in a demonstration. We filmed a lot of
Dead Europe like a documentary. It’s got a verite, documentary edge, but its
also a really gripping.”
Watts said: “It was
shot like a Michael Winterbottom film, very much on the road, shot on four
countries, there was ten of us including Ewen.”
Krawitz’s last
feature was the documentary The Tall Man, which screened at 2011′s Toronto
International Film Festival.
The film, which has
worked within the Australian qualifications for the producer offset, has
international sales through the French based company, Wild Bunch and will be
distributed through Transmission locally.
