By Franca Lafosse for Film in Revolt
Franca Lafosse: Hi David, thank you for speaking with us today and congratulations on the release of Wolfram – it’s out in cinemas now!
David Jowsey I know, it’s very exciting.
F: It’s also been 9 years since the release of director Warwick Thorton’s last feature Sweet Country, to now releasing its sequel. When did your involvement with producing Wolfram begin, and how have you seen the project evolve over the years?
D: Look, it’s a long and arduous story of peddling hard for a long time. We released Sweet Country in 2017, and that was a hell of a long time ago! But at the time when we made that film, we did have a female storyline in it, and that storyline ended up on the cutting room floor. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, it just didn’t really fit into the movie. And Sweet Country, as well as Wolfram, are based on the heritage, true family story of David Trenter, who is not only the sound recordist of the movie but also the co-producer and co-writer. So, when we made Sweet Country, Dave was disappointed for all his female relatives for not really getting to tell their side of the story. He said that it was unfinished, and that he wanted to make a sequel to show that perspective… and I thought – ‘Sweet Country‘s not really what you’d call a natural film for a sequel’ – because it’s got this brutal end, there’s no hook that it leaves you with to come back.
But anyway, David felt an obligation to even the ledger. So, he did a first draft, and we got on board. We got the original writer of Sweet Country, Steven McGregor, who we’ve also worked with a lot, to then develop the script of Wolfram as a counter story telling female side of Dave’s heritage and his family, including his Chinese heritage, which is embodied in the film.
It took a long time to write the sequel because our lead character Pansy, played by Deborah Mailman, doesn’t really say much. She is a survivor who has been oppressed and abused, it was a very difficult story to tell right, you know, and it was a group of blokes and David wanting to tell the female side of his story, so it took many years to write the script. And then of course we wanted to have Warwick Thorton directing it… and Warwick said, ‘Well, I don’t like sequels and I don’t think we should be making a sequel!’
F: Is it true that you had to pay him to read it?
D: Well, we had to tell him ‘Look, just f*cking read it’, and eventually we talked him into it. Any form of payment may have been by providing him with food and beer, and trapping him in a backyard somewhere – this may be true, or it may be not – but we absolutely forced him to read it, and he did! And because it is a great story that is a balancing, or an antidote, or a cure to the harshness of Sweet Country; because it’s a story about hope and resilience and the female spirit, he signed up and said ‘Let’s do it!’. By that point it was about six years later since writing the script, so we got a team and proceeded to finance the film.
F: Which is a whole beast in and of itself!
D: It took a couple of years to do that, yes. It’s a long-term endeavour and we have a small company that has a slate of things, they can take years to do. Sometimes they’re quick, and other times it takes a while.
F: It’s interesting too because, despite being a sequel, the film also stands perfectly on its own, do you see them as two of a pair or as individual projects?
D: Well, Wolfram is a sequel to Sweet Country – there are characters from Sweet Country for example that have bled into Wolfram – but they totally stand alone. As filmmakers we always want to make films that stand alone so that you don’t have to have seen the original, because it would deter people from seeing it. So, it is its own story, but it very much is a part of the franchise-in-the-making – because we are also developing a TV-series with Warwick based on the two movies, that continues the story set in Henry, the town where both films are set. We like to name our towns after our team’s pets, so Henry is named after Warwick’s cat that he had at the time of Sweet Country!
F: That’s amazing, so we’ve heard it here first – there’s a TV series in the works?
D: Yes, it’s in development, Warwick’s written it, and it’s really crazy. When you see Wolfram, you’ll see that in the town of Henry there is a pub called Henry Hotel that is run by two women, Nell and Olive – the TV series is about them! It’s amazing because they’re very interesting characters but they’re little explored in the movie, so we focus on their story of running this pub in a town full miners, drifters, cowboys and vagabonds. Funnily enough Olive, who is Nell’s daughter in the pub, is actually played by Warwick’s daughter Luka May Glynn Cole. And both Olive and Nell (Anni Finsterer) were in Sweet Country as well.
F: Brilliant! Warwick has also talked about how he loves to work with new actors and feels that he’s on the right path when producers go ‘I’ve never heard of that actor before’. I wonder what that experience of casting was like from your end?
D: Yes, I give credit to Warwick for that. Because when we wrote the script, we had the bad guys, Casey and Frank, as two older guys who have returned from the First World War. Casey, played by Erroll Shand, originally had a guy the same age as him, but Warwick thought it would be much more interesting if he has a younger protégé who he’s training to be a killer. So, we got the fabulous Joe Bird, from Talk To Me, to play Frank. He’s a brilliant actor, and it’s much more vulnerable and emotionally nuanced for an audience, it’s awful.
F: I agree, I think it’s much more confronting to see a younger person in such a position of relentless violence. And so, since Wolfram had its premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival in October last year, I wonder how was it received then and how does it compare to the film being out in cinemas now?
D: We were very kindly supported by the Adelaide Film Festival Fund, this film had a very tight budget, and it took a bit longer to make than we had planned – which is often the way. So we played an unfinished version of the film at AFF. It was a very good experience, without being disingenuous to Adelaide audiences, to treat the premiere as a test screening with a live audience, to see what that would be like, since we’d never shown it before. Then, after AFF we re-edited the film and we added a sound score, so it became quite a different film from the one that was screened at Adelaide.
F: Oh, wow! Do you feel like it was beneficial to have that experience? How does it compare to the standard test screening process?
D: Well, we generally always test our films, whether it’s through an informal ‘friends and family screening’, where we invite a group of people to watch it and give feedback, or whether it’s a formal test screening where you have a form or an app – and often you can hire a companies who will manage the test screening, analyse the results and report them back to you. So, we do regularly hold test-screenings of our films.
F: Were there any major changes made after that first screening?
D: Yes, the film was restructured, and we added the soundtrack. This is so typical of Warwick because – you gotta love him! – we put a music score on the film, but Warwick got this musician, Charlie Barker, who plays the saw. She literally plays a saw, like one that you’d use to saw a tree, like a violin. So the film has a score made with a saw, and it’s fabulous.
F: Yes, and very unsettling!
D: Well, it’s a bit like the Spaghetti Westerns… They’re the original model, they had the classic, ethereal-sounding, 5-minute ‘guy-rides-into-town’ shot with spooky music – and you just know someone’s gonna die.
F: Warwick’s also spoken about the significance of the soundscape in the film, even from the opening sequence when we hear construction sounds and expect to see adult miners, but instead we’re met with a small Aboriginal child mining.
D: It’s true. And, look, Sweet Country doesn’t have a score. It is literally the sound of the wind in the desert oaks, and the sounds of the birds and horses, but it doesn’t have any music – which is unusual because it’s a great film and yet it doesn’t have a score. And for Wolfram we weren’t going to have one either, but in the end we do have a little bit which is the saw playing. Other than that, it doesn’t have a lot of score, it has a very live soundtrack of the world that we’re in. There’s a fair few flies heard, there’s birds, trees, so the world is very present and very live.
F: Certainly, and I’m interested to see what will happen now to the soundtrack of the TV series!
D: Oh, yeah! Well – there’s a piano player in it, so there will be a score.
Aha! So, more instruments on the way, fantastic… And finally before we wrap up, I wondered if you could tell us about when you and Warwick first started working together – was it with Sweet Country?
D: It was with Sweet Country, yes, and we at Bunya Productions also make a TV Series called Mystery Road on the ABC, Warwick directed a season of that as well. We have a few other projects in development, including the TV-iteration of the Sweet Country/Wolfram franchise. And, of course, we’ve obviously done Wolfram, which is out in cinemas now!
F: Indeed it is, so everyone should go see it! David thank you so much for your time, and congratulations on this incredible journey!