HOME
2019 / 16mins / Australia
Tormented by the news that they bear, two men from town watch over a family whose lives are about to change forever...
DIRECTOR
PETER GURBIEL
PRODUCERS
IRIS TASCON, JESS BLACK, PETER GURBIEL
CINEMATOGRAPHER
DAVID EGGBY A.C.S.
PRODUCTION DESIGN
NATHAN VAN DER WIELE
EDITOR
MANDY JACOBS
ORIGINAL SCORE
MARC EARLEY
ABOUT THE FILM
HOME was first discovered on the stage from a contemporary adaptation of Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1894 one-act play INTÉRIEUR. Full of crushing innocence and fleeting flourishes of life masquerading between the darker recesses of death and the human condition, such was its impact that it had that writer and director Peter Gurbiel knew that this was a film that just had to be made.
Maeterlinck himself had little faith that actors could successfully plumb the depths of his material, and envisioned the play performed instead by marionettes. HOME is resolutely a performance piece, drama in its most basic and raw and universal sense, and casting the film was key to mining the complex layers of the narrative and the inner mechanisations of human despair in a visceral, honest and enchanting way. Australian cinema icon Jack Thompson plays The Old Man, the central figure in the events that transpire within the film, and around which the production was built. Jack’s inquisitive introspection into the material and the character are profound, and his skills and command of his craft breathtaking.
Nathaniel Dean delivers a powerful performance in the key role of Ed Miller, the spectrum through which audiences most identify with and engage the story. Nat’s keen depiction is raw and honest and heartbreaking in equal measure. The two men are joined by the lovely Emilie Cocquerel who brings our Martha to life, employing tremendous skill in the guise of restrained innocence, a delicate portrayal of a young soul confronted with loss and pain and hurt for the first time.
An exceptional small crew of designers and technicians realised the homestead at the centre of the film’s plot, built at full scale in exquisite period detail and captured through the lens by legendary Australian cinematographer David Eggby A.C.S. on set and on location in Western Australia. Each individual element of the production has been designed and executed at a world-class level, immersing the audience in a richly observed and intoxicating new world.
HOME explores the dark and beautiful vestiges of life through death, and the fragility of simple ideas such as safety and comfort that are today more relevant than ever. What does ‘home’ mean? Is it a place? Is it a feeling? Where do we belong, and who do we belong to? HOME is a part of all of us.
Hometown Pictures is proud to present HOME to audiences around the world.
JACK THOMPSON
THE OLD MAN
JACK THOMPSON: “I play the character described as ‘The Old Man’. He’s an elder of the village. He represents age really, he represents someone who’s been through a bit of life and who’s probably had to discuss the death of someone in the village before these incidents occured.
What attracts me to all projects is the script, as soon as I saw the script for ‘Home’ I could see that it’s a great vehicle for an actor. It’s about people’s internal lives, about their fears and aspirations, and that’s what an actor wants.
Working with Peter has been really great. We set out to make this little movie some time ago and various circumstances including the weather got in the way. We’ve discussed it backwards and forwards, Peter really knows what he wants. He’s worked really hard with a really good crew to put that together, and it doesn’t get any better than that.”
*****
One of Australia’s most loved and respected actors, Jack Thompson has appeared in numerous Australian and American films including the classic Sunday Too Far Away (1975), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) and Breaker Morant (1980) which won him an Australian Film Institute award for Best Actor in a leading role, and the award for Best Supporting Actor at the Cannes International Film Festival. Other credits include The Man From Snowy River (1982), The Sum of Us (1994), Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil (1997), The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2003), Australia (2008), Mao’s Last Dancer (2008),The Great Gatsby (2011), Mystery Road (2012), The Light Between Oceans (2017) and most recently Don’t Tell (2018) for which he was nominated for Best Actor at the 2018 AACTA Awards.
Jack Thompson as ‘The Old Man’ in Hometown Pictures HOME
NATHANIEL DEAN
ED MILLER
NATHANIEL DEAN: “The film for me speaks about big things, it has a lot to do with not only death but also what we regret in life, it revolves around the idea of home is heart. Home is truth. Ed is a character who is haunted by the past and is overwhelmed finding the dead body of a beautiful young girl which sparks in him memories. The powerlessness one feels with such a desperate and brutal act.
And then watching a family blissfully unaware of the impending nightmare is further purgatory. Jack is who inspired me to become an actor! It was an honour to share this story with Jack, he has such a big heart and a true actor in all the senses – challenging, open and bloody honest, it’s been one of the joys that I’ve had. Pete is a wonderfully driven talent, full of original ideas.
This script is dense with subtext and Pete dived deep with that. The day I arrived in Western Australia was also a super moon, and as I met Pete for the first time and we shared life stories getting to know each other a lunar eclipse was happening right behind us! Western Australia is a beautiful place to shoot, and this was a really wonderful team to have worked with, I’m very proud to be a part of this film.”
*****
Nathaniel Dean is an Australian actor born in the Yarra Valley, Victoria. Nathaniel has worked extensively in film, theatre and television. His first film role after graduating from NIDA in 1999 was in Tony Ayres’ Walking on Water for which he received the Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award in 2002 for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In 2004 Nathaniel was again nominated for an AFI Award for his role in Cate Shortland’s Somersault. His other film credits include roles in Neil Armfield’s Candy, as well as The Rage in Lake Placid, The Final Winter and Locusts. Nathaniel’s roles in theatre include The Effect (MTC), A Streetcar Named Desire (Black Swan Theatre Company), The One Day of the Year and The Secret River (STC) directed by Neil Armfield, for which he received a Helpmann Award nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal of William Thornhill. He has just completed the upcoming feature The Nightingale directed by Jennifer Kent, and can be seen as Sergeant Hallet in Alien: Covenant directed by Ridley Scott.
Nathaniel Dean as ‘Ed Miller’ in Hometown Pictures HOME
EMILIE COCQUEREL
MARTHA
EMILIE COCQUEREL: “I had a gut reaction to ‘Home’ the moment I read it. I think it’s so universal, it’s just a few scenes that you could pick out and put into any time and place, and it just has so much weight and power and it’s very relatable. That first read through was really special.
Martha, I like her innocence. The whole costume, you put it on and it’s like ‘OK, here we are...’ it transforms you immediately, and when I took it off 12 hours later I realised that I have so much that I can see! It was a real eye opening experience to how women lived. It has been such a pleasure shooting this film, and I hope the audience enjoys it as much as we did making it. Each of the characters have their own full journeys, and in three minutes they go through every sort of coping mechanism and rationalisation, it’s a real gift for the actor.
It’s been such a pleasure shooting, Peter’s so nurturing as a director, he’s so creative and intelligent but gives you so much room to breathe and move, it’s just really been a beautiful collaboration working with him. The rehearsal process was very exciting because you read the script and it does literally jump off the page and you’re filled with just so many images and memories and to then bring this into a rehearsal room with Jack Thompson who brings so much life, and Nathaniel Dean who was just a gun, I almost forgot to say my lines! The script is so poetic, there’s so much in the words and to hear it be said and be lived is really beautiful.”
*****
Born in Sydney to a French father and an Australian mother, Emelie attended bi-lingual schools in France, Los Angeles and Houston before settling in Sydney. Studying at Sydney University she led performances in the Drama Society (SUDS), and finished runner-up in the Dungog Film Festival Speed Auditions. Emelie was accepted into the prestigious Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts acting program, and attended a three month exchange program with the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique de Paris (CNSAD) where she studied under renowned director Daniel Mesguish. Emilie was a runner-up for the 2015 Heath Ledger Scholarship and is one of Australia’s most intriguing recent graduates as her recent inclusion in the Australian Women’s Weekly’s Generation Next portfolio will attest. Emelie was cast in feature films ‘Joe Cinque’s Consolation’ based on the book by Helen Garner, ‘Lion’ starring Dev Patel & Rooney Mara, and ‘Mormon Yankees: The Spirit of the Game’. She also featured in Rachel Ward’s ABC tele-movie ‘An Accidental Soldier’. Emilie’s most recent project ‘The Legend Of Monkey’ premiered in 2018 on ABC and TVNZ before airing globally on Netflix later that year.
Emilie Cocquerel as ‘Martha’ in Hometown Pictures HOME
DAVID EGGBY A.C.S.
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
DAVID EGGBY ACS: “Peter approached me some time ago when I was in WA giving a Q&A on a movie and he sent me a script soon after. Pete is a very keen young filmmaker and it was a pleasure being able to spend time on the film with him. He was great with the actors and had a vision that he was able to convey to me very well. He was also comfortable to let me offer my experience in guidance in shooting ‘Home’.
Creating an authentic looking moonlit exterior scene is always a challenge in a studio and the Perth ABC studio is quite small with a mass of fixed lighting equipment rigged above the set that is impossible to frame out of any wide-shots, so these had to be digitally erased after shooting directly into black curtains hanging from the studio walls.
I really enjoyed my time in WA and the crew was great to work with, the cast were fantastic. I enjoyed the whole experience and working with Jack’s face and voice again, and I did particularly like the shot of the girl who came to the window, almost ghost like. A very polished production.”
*****
London-born Australian cinematographer David Eggby's career began with a credit that demands respect: he was the cinematographer who shot ‘Mad Max’ the 1979 action extravaganza. The low-budget action thriller from Down Under galvanized audiences by getting so close to the road race action that one felt the cameramen narrowly escaped death in each scene. Eggby actually did hang off motorcycles to get such breath-taking footage, and the film's legend helped solidify Eggby's reputation as an action and fantasy cinematographer. In the late '80s he began working in the United States and shot films including the 1993 Bruce Lee biopic, ‘Dragon’ the Bruce Lee Story, and the 1996 fantasy ‘Dragonheart’. Eggby did radical work on the 2006 sci-fi film ‘Pitch Black’ creating a planet with three suns by using the risky process of bleaching the film's negative, and returned to the series with Riddick in 2013. David Eggby has received 7 Gold ACS awards including the Australian Cinematographers Society Gold Tripod. In 2001 he was named Cinematographer of the year, and in 2012 he was inducted into the ACS ‘Hall of Fame’.
Cinematographer David Eggby ACS on the set of Hometown Pictures HOME