Feature article

by Luke Buckmaster

WISH FOR A WISH

The first film funded by the AFC's IndiVision Project Lab is The Caterpillar Wish, writer/director Sandra Sciberass' compelling small-town drama about a girl determined to unlock the identity of her father.  Couched in an alternative cafe on Smith street in Melbourne Sciberass and producer Kate Whitbread chat to Luke Buckmaster about working to see a wish materialise. 

Where does the Australian film industry’s fascination with small towns and coastal communities come from?  Every year at least one film comes out depicting one of those rustic, picturesque hideaway places that seem to linger on the outskirts of every Australian city.  Recently we've seen Oyster Farmer (2005), Somersault (2004), Strange Bedfellows (2004) and Australian Rules (2003), while Australian television in recent years has provided Sea Change, McLeod’s Daughters, Home and Away, Blue Heelers and plenty more.  According to these productions there is something inherently nationalistic about getting to know the blokes and ladies spread through the shrubbery of regional Australia.

I approached the creative tag-team behind The Caterpillar Wish hoping to get some answers.  Written and directed by Sandra Sciberass and produced by Kate Whitbread, the film (released nationally June 8) is a smoothly woven small-town drama about a teenage girl determined to unlock the identity of her father.  Sciberass and Whitbread settled on the South Australian town of Robe for the film’s principal locations, but only after driving through more than twenty other spots that were deemed unsatisfactory.  I figure they’re as good an authority as any to discuss what all this country town hoopla is actually about.   

“I have a theory,” says Whitbread, couched alongside Sciberass at a trendy alternative café on Smith Street, Fitzroy.  “We just got back from Europe and when we came back I thought we are so isolated (in Australia), we are so far away… I think we feel that as Australians.  Even though everything is linked, we are a long way away.  I think sometimes that reflects onto our cinema.” 

“And the rest of the world love us for it,” adds Sciberass.  “Maybe they can analyse it better than us.  They seem to be really attracted to these sorts of stories as well.” 

Their explanations may be vague but we agree that it's about much more than just scenic backdrops.  On the subject of Australian films and international exportability the two are undoubtedly bona fide; Whitbread in fact is a tad jet-lagged from having recently returned from pitching The Caterpillar Wish to prospective buyers at Cannes.  No word as yet on any international sales but on the strength of this film alone local distributor Palace Films has already acquired the rights to their next project.   

It isn’t difficult to understand why.  The Caterpillar Wish is a compelling drama staged with great compassion for its creations.  Sciberass' script carefully builds a story embroiled with characters concealing checkered pasts and buried truths, and then slowly unwinds the mesh of tangled dramas between them.  Emily (Victoria Thaine) is the film’s focus, and her search for her estranged father (she’s never met him, but discovers he may be a town resident) is the trigger that rouses skeletons from their closets.  Emily isn’t a trouble maker – she’s one of those teenagers who seem infinitely more mature than most adults – but her quest for familial enlightenment invariably leads to shady discoveries about some of the town folk. 

Of these philandering town cop Carl, played by TV vet Philip Quast, comes across looking the most deprived of conscience.  Something about that appealed to the darker side of Sciberass.  “I found Karl as easy as apple pie to write.  I loved writing him,” she says.  “I just feel like I get those men.  Like I understand their fuckedness.  I get it, you know, their psychotic behaviour and their weirdness.  And I enjoy writing for them.”                                                                                                                   
The Caterpillar Wish is the first feature film to be funded by the Indivsion Project Lab, an Australian Film Commission incentive that provided selected filmmakers with script, performance and financing feedback in February 2005 from artists such as US producer Joshua Zeman (The Station Agent), Denmark's Rumle Hammerich (Young Andersen) and Australia's Rolf de Heer (The Tracker).   

“It was great working with people from overseas that have such a great outlook,” Sciberass says.  “And when we talk low budget, they make low budget films.  You’re talking $700-$800,000 U.S.  So these people know how to make films on the shoestring as well, and it was nice discussing how they get away with it and how we get away with it.” 

For the film’s editing a much-welcomed surprise mentor burst upon the scene in the form of director Fred Schipisi (The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Roxanne, Fierce Creatures, etc).  “He came in and had a look at some cuts,” says Whitbread.  “And he was great.  He made a lot of brilliant suggestions; the man’s got forty years experience.”   

“He saved us three weeks of editing that we didn’t have the money for,” adds Sciberass.  “So you gotta get one of those people on board at the end.  Don’t use them at the beginning.”

Now that The Caterpillar Wish is a reality, Sciberass and Whitbread can work towards filming their next project: Maxwell, a drama set on Kangaroo Island. 

Off the coast of South Australia, Kangaroo Island is, just for the record, another small Australian community, another picturesque oceanic location resting on the edges of nowhere. By embracing the Australian film industry's fascination with small towns and costal communities Sciberass and Whitbread are undoubtedly maintaining a proud tradition, even if neither I nor themselves can explain precisely why.

 

Article by Luke Buckmaster
June 2006