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Melbourne Airport Emerging Australian Filmmaker Award Melbourne International Film Festival, 2007
Q: Did you have any idea you would win the Melbourne Airport Emerging Talent Filmmaker Award?
WT: Well… actually, yes. I knew a little early because I had to come down from Sydney to accept the award. When I found out it was a great surprise.
Q: Why did you decide to become a film maker?
WT: Where I grew up in Alice I was a DJ for a radio station. The station began a film unit and so I watched people pack cameras and equipment into cars and take off to make films. I was alone at the radio station and I thought that I really wanted to go with them. That’s how it started, I made a film called Green Bush which is basically about that time. Eventually I went to AFTRS in Sydney and got really involved as a Director of Photography. I’ve been in the business for 9 years now.
Q: What’s special about the Melbourne International Film Festival?
WT: I love it! It’s the perfect time of year for a film festival and Melbourne is a great city. The selection panel have a unique process for selecting films. The films they chose are unusual… and I reckon they have a great eye for film.
Q: Who is your favourite director?
WT: There are so many. I saw a fantastic New Zealand film recently Eagle vs. Shark by Taika Waititi. Kate Shortland is a great Aussie director I loved her film Somersault.
Q: Who or what inspires your work?
WT: Humanity, a good story. I make films that have a reason for me. I have to have a passion for it to do it. I need to own the story, know the subjects really well… and believe in it. I have to laugh, cry and get angry about the idea before I even make the film. I’m not a filmmaker who would make a film about a subject I know nothing about. For me I know I have to soak myself in it in order to make a film.
Q: What’s the best thing about making films?
WT: Definitely the first screening of your film. The nervousness and adrenaline is frightening and I love it. It’s a great feeling when you know that people are watching and lovin’ what you have done. You spend so much time and money making a film – it’s amazing when it pays off and you know that people like what they see. It’s just such hard work to get there.
Q: Favourite film?
WT: Solaris (the new version) with George Clooney, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada directed by Tommy Lee Jones.
Q: What are your interests outside of film?
WT: I love motorcycles. I grew up in Alice Springs riding dirt bikes and doing motocross. I always make time – whatever I’m doing – to go to the Finke Desert Race. I also collect Gibson guitars. I play, but not very well – but I collect the guitars because they’re beautiful, rare and expensive.It’s amazing to hold something that’s nearly 100 years old and wonder who might have owned it or played it. I have 8 in my collection.
Q:What‘s next for you?
WT: Writing a lot. I’m working up to doing my next film Samson and Delilah, which will shoot next year.
A writer and director, Warwick Thornton was born in Alice Springs, and is a cinematography graduate from Australian Film Television and Radio School.
Warwick’s Melbourne Airport Award winning film, Nana is set in Jay Creek, Northern Territory and looks at family ties through the eyes of a young girl on the edge of adulthood. A story of tenacity and spirit, Nana is the story of one strong woman who makes sure that community and family come first. Warwick’s unique voice tells this simple story of outback courage.
Since winning the Emerging Talent award, Nana has also gone on to win Best Short Film at the 2007 Inside Film (IF) awards in Queensland as well as the 2008 Best Short Film award at the prestigious Berlin International Film festival.
Mitjili Gibson, Kiara Gibson - with Warwick Thornton on the set of Nana. Photograph courtesy of Mark Rogers.
His other short dramas include Mimi, starring Aaron Pedersen and Sophie Lee and Payback, which screened at Telluride Film Festival in Colarado, USA. Warwick is also a distinguished cinematographer of many documentary and drama films, most notably Radiance,directed by Rachel Perkins, along with My Brother Vinnie for SBS TV.
Warwick is currently preparing to make his first feature film, Samson and Delilah, which will shoot in 2008.
