Perth City Search

July 2008

 

What's up, South Australia? Confirming its 1970s-fuelled reputation as Australia's home of independent (read: smaller budget) movies, the great southern state has secured a raft of productions in 2008 (including director Rachel Ward's Beautiful Kate and veteran producer David Lightfoot's Coffin Rock).

While the Eastern States duke it out for the glittering offshore shoots, SA has quietly gone about its business, with The Matrix and Lord of the Rings star Hugo Weaving the latest big name to start working in the Flinders Ranges.

After Rachel Griffiths, Ben Mendelsohn and Bryan Brown recently filmed Beautiful Kate in the Ranges, Weaving joined the rest of the cast and crew on Monday (July 21) for the first day of shooting Last Ride. The feature debut for Australian director Glendyn Ivin - who won the Palme d'Or at 2003's Cannes Film Festival for his short Crackerbag - Last Ride has Weaving as a dad on the lam with his son (unknown SA lad Tom Russell).

Weaving can do anything and we'd watch it, and we're keen to see what filmmaker-on-the-rise Ivin can do with a feature-length palette. Oh, and how SA will look as the backdrop for a road movie about "the power and price of love" (as the official guff tells it).

Ben McEachen