By Franca Lafosse for Film In Revolt
Teenage boys Naim and Ryan strike up an unexpected connection. But when their bond draws the attention of their community, a ritual is performed on them, releasing a violent entity. An entity that takes the form of its victim’s truest desire. Starring Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen in the lead roles, Adrian Chiarella’s debut horror feature LEVITICUS is one of the must-see Australian films of 2026.
Franca: Sam, thank you for speaking with us today, and congratulations on Leviticus and The Fox which just screened at Sydney Film Festival! You are one half of Causeway Films along with Producer Kristina Ceyton, and you have produced so many incredible films together… but it seems like your roles change from project to project, ranging from development through to executive producing. So I firstly wanted to ask at what stage did you come on board with Leviticus?
Sam: Hello, thank you! It’s true, our roles can totally change, from coming on board with an outline, to a whole script, it really depends on what is most helpful for the film and the team behind it. With Leviticus, we actually knew Adrian as a filmmaker from his short film work, and then we came across the synopsis through a VicScreen funding announcement and thought – that’s a good idea! We loved the concept, the genre, and that combined with knowing Adrian as a filmmaker – his voice, his restraint and control, and consideredness as a filmmaker – that’s a combination of the hook of this idea of being forced to be scared of the person you most desire, being scared of your own desire, and that playing out as an embodiment of homophobia felt like it was a really smart use of the horror genre. At the same time, we knew from his work that his use of performance and elegant storytelling would be there as well, so we came on board!
We asked to read the script, it was a draft at that point that had been developed through the VicScreen Originate Features program, and we worked on several more drafts together. We’re very hands-on in terms of development, both Kristina and I get very involved, and then we started talking about how to finance and cast the film, and then went on to make it with him. So it was from a fairly early stage, but there was a script that already existed. Sometimes it’s earlier stages than that, and sometimes it’s later…
I loved that you define your work as “the development and production of entertaining, socially relevant stories that allow original and diverse creative voices to achieve international success”, I wonder what it is that drives you to jump onboard with a project and decide ‘Yes, this sounds like a Causeway project’?
Because we’re a very personal company, it’s quite a hard thing to define and it does come down to a level of personal taste in terms of Kristina and I’s shared sensibility, and there’s also this kind of undefinable emotional response that you have to the material. But if you look at it more externally, I think we’re very interested in shared factors like something that has a distinct voice, a particular point of view, that has something to say or contributes in some way to the current world… we do love genre but we do like to play in all sorts of different genres, so it’s really about whether a project is unique, moving, and attached to a filmmaker that is fresh, inspiring and clear in their vision.
So then, thinking about you jumping on board with Leviticus knowing Adrian as a short-filmmaker, and having now done a feature together – was the process what you expected, were there any learnings along the way?
Every film has new learnings! Every single time you think ‘Yeah, cool, we’ve got this’, and then the next film has a completely new set of challenges that you could never have predicted – it’s this strange alchemy of a process. So there were new challenges, not around Adrian, it was more new challenges because it’s a film with intimacy, with young actors who needed to be very supported in that process, so that was obviously a huge priority for us. And when you’re working anywhere within the spectrum of horror, there’s always some challenges around how to do something meaningful and personal but that doesn’t feel like we’ve seen it all before. You want to be able to make something that feels satisfying but also new. So that’s always a challenge that comes up in all kinds of little ways, there’s all sorts of unexpected things that go on, but overall we had a good experience. I think the main thing for us was looking after the young cast, in particular our leads Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen, so that they were completely comfortable and free to create the chemistry and tenderness between those two leads..
I think you absolutely achieved that, and in the context of this film, that love that they have for each other becomes so much more powerful, because it’s the thing that they are so desperately trying to protect… Coming back to the “international success” part of your mission statement, you’ve made Talk To Me which is such a great example of a film that’s put Australia back on the map internationally, and now Leviticus is releasing in the US one day after its Australian release, so how important is it to you that Australian films resonate internationally, and what does that level of success mean to you?
That’s always been something that’s hugely important to us. We care so much about the Australian audience, we very particularly care about young Australian audiences, and the future Australian audiences. So these things go hand-in-hand, international focus is important because we have such amazing talent in Australia, so we want to support filmmakers who may not already be established, who we believe can break out internationally. We want to launch new talent on the world stage and have Australian voices and stories being taken seriously and competing in the international marketplace. So we instinctively ask ourselves: Do we feel like this could make a splash internationally? Do we think it could break through in a very competitive worldwide marketplace? Because I do think that Australian films and filmmakers really have something special to offer, there’s an authenticity, a groundedness and an intrinsic otherness that comes with being Australian, so there are beautiful advantages to making work here. Obviously we have an amazing system, and incredible government support, but also there is incredible talent, and it’s always been important to us to try to find talent that might not already be discovered, and support them to launch internationally.
The other part of that is, when Causeway Films started 12 years ago, we often heard the idea that young people in Australia don’t go to see Australian films, that genre was difficult, and films aimed at younger audiences were difficult, and first-time directors were difficult… so it’s always been important to us to break that mold and not only attract young Australian audiences to Australian cinema, but also make them excited – it was a huge mission for us and for the directors of Talk To Me to get a young audience into the cinema, and for them to feel proud that it was an Australian film. So we really do hope there is pride around Leviticus, and a new Australian story breaking through, there’s been a few fantastic Australian debuts recently – like the film Together – and there’s an amazing history of brave debut films coming from Australia, with The Babadook being one of them, but also way back since the 70s. So we have always had great faith in that if we make films that a young audience in Australia relates to, and is proud of, and excited by, and want to see – they will come. We want to be part of that movement, and it’s finally happening!
That’s beautiful! And an amazing thing to be able to experience from the outside too…
I know, there used to be such low morale around our own films! It’s finally shifting, it’s so exciting to see, and I think this next generation of filmmakers coming through in Australia will be the most exciting we’ve seen yet.
It feels like we have cracked through a kind of barrier – because even hearing the Australian accent on screen was jarring for people at one point!
Yes, and not even like a big, hard-core, ocker outback accent, not that sort of exaggerated accent or a kind of underground criminal Aussie accent – but just how people normally talk. With Talk To Me, which was only three years ago,, we could have financed that film through US finances, but their one thing was that they wanted the main characters to be American and to speak with American accents, just to make it more commercial… and it just didn’t feel right. It’s only us that can change that, it’s only us making stories with our own voice that will make people start to get used to hearing them, and in fact start liking hearing them! It’s not impossible to understand Australian accents, it’s not that big of a barrier, but that was another kind of misconception that we came up against, the: “Ah, look, no one will understand!”. But no one’s had issues understanding Leviticus so far.
It’s a very important decision to highlight because though it could seem like a small compromise, the message that a change like that sends is huge! The idea that a US audience wouldn’t be able to identify or understand a character because they’re from a different country or culture? It’s just ridiculous.
And it would mean that the setting would have changed, the characters, it wouldn’t have been the filmmaker’s world and what they know, it wouldn’t have been genuine to who they are. And if we start changing that in filmmakers and their work, I think it will lose that very special authenticity that audiences want. A sense of authenticity is incredibly important for a project to not feel like it’s cookie-cutter, or generic, or watered-down. I think that what makes something special and unique needs to be held onto, and Adrian’s retained what is personal and authentic to him in Leviticus.
It’s wonderful to hear someone in your position recognise that, I wonder are people internationally starting to awaken to that same realisation, or is there still a lot of resistance?
I think it’s really changing, and it’s super exciting to see. Again, I give credit to new generations of audiences and filmmakers, I think even things like Letterboxed have changed the way that people break down and diagnose audiences, rather than it being a block of “18 to 35-year-old males want this”. It’s now a much more complex conversation and we’re hearing from the audience themselves, and seeing people curate their own identity and taste through what they’re drawn to in terms of films and filmmaking. So, I think it is becoming more complex and these assumptions are shifting. I do think that audiences now want something that is authentic and original, not just what they’ve seen a hundred times.
So finally, thinking about that shift you’ve identified, I wonder if you think it’s connected to the change we’ve seen in accessibility to international films through streaming services, and also the filmmakers themselves being able to grow a more international audience through social media?
Absolutely, I think streaming has been a game-changer and a key part of all of this, as well as social media allowing filmmakers to build a direct engagement with their audiences. I think this goes outside the given or established structures of how audiences were ‘allowed’ to receive work. Like, when I grew up you could only see certain things at a cinema, or if it was programmed on the TV channel, so this whole idea that you can explore films since the beginning of filmmaking, that you can curate and cultivate your own taste in filmmaking from this huge range of work available online – and also the fact that there can be a dialogue online about that – I think it has completely changed the nature of how audiences engage, and I do think it’s made the experience much more personalised, it’s a fantastic movement to see happening.
Brilliant, thank you so much Sam! I can’t wait for people to see Leviticus and to finally be able to talk to people about it, all the best with the journey ahead!
I’m going to be so interested in how it’s received in different territories, cultures, it’s going to be fascinating! It’s a nerve-racking thing, but Adrian and I do talk about how, even if just a handful of people see it and are changed, or moved, if it means something to them and it fortifies something in them, that is a win!
Leviticus is out in Australian cinemas as of June 19 – go see it and tell us what you think!