The Hodgman Liberal Government is a strong supporter of the arts in Tasmania and the jobs and investments they create.
I am excited to announce the Government will invest $200,000 in a new landmark Tasmanian feature film, Nightingale, written and directed by Jennifer Kent, who was responsible for the critically-acclaimed The Babadook in 2014.
Ms Kent’s next project has been eagerly anticipated and it’s a real coup for the state that she has chosen a Tasmanian story to tell. We look forward to welcoming Ms Kent, producer Kristina Ceyton, and the production team later this year.
The film, although based on a fictional plot, will provide an insight into colonial times where violence was more common place. It tells the traumatic story of a 19-year-old Irish convict woman who witnesses her family brutally murdered by her soldier master and his cronies. Unable to find justice, she takes an Aboriginal male tracker with her through the hellish wilderness to seek revenge on the men, and gets much more than she bargained for.
The film is expected to bring more than $3.6 million into Tasmania and will be the largest feature film ever wholly-shot in the State. Cameras are expected to roll in late 2016, employing up to 25 local Tasmanian crew members, plus local actors, and providing for a number of attachments for emerging Tasmanian filmmakers.
I am very proud that this exciting film drawing on Tasmania’s history will be shot entirely in our State and Screen Tasmania has played a critical role in facilitating this project.
A film of this scale with international ambitions will also showcase the extraordinary Tasmanian landscape to audiences across the world and securing this film is a wonderful vote of confidence in our filmmaking talent, our stories and the Tasmanian creative industries.
The film comes on the back of large-budget projects Lion, The Kettering Incident and The Light between Oceans, which all shot in the state over the last few years, and the ABC-TV comedy series Rosehaven from Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor, which will go into production here in the coming months.
The film will be released in Australia by Transmission.