AUSTRALIA
2010 / INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE
2H00 / IN ENGLISH

Synopsis
When sixteen-year-old Jamie is introduced to a charismatic man, a friendship begins. As the relationship grows so do Jamie's suspicions, until he finds his world threatened by both his loyalty for, and fear of, his newfound father-figure John Bunting, Australia's most notorious serial killer.

director: Justin Kurzel
screenplay: Shaun Grant
story by : Shaun Grant Justin Kurzel
cinematography: Adam Arkapaw
editing: Veronika Jenet ASE
sound: Frank Lipson MPSE
production design: Fiona Crombie
music: Jed Kurzel

cast:
Lucas Pittaway
Daniel Henshall
Louise Harris
Frank Cwertniak
Matthew Howard
Marcus Howard
Anthony Groves
Richard Green
Aaron Viergever

production
WARP FILMS AUSTRALIA
Anna McLeish, Sarah Shaw
Tel. +61 3 9029 4956
australia@warpfilms.com

distribution
ARP
Michèle Halberstadt
Tel. + 33 1 56 69 26 00
Mob. +33 6 20 25 32 62
mh@arpselection.eu

sales
PROTAGONIST PICTURES
Ben Roberts, Bridget Pedgrift
Tel. + 44 207 734 90 00
Mob. + 44 787 269 25 73
ben@protagonistpictures.com
bridget@protagonistpictures.com

French press
BOSSA NOVA
Michel Burstein
Tel. + 33 1 43 26 26 26
Mob. + 33 6 07 55 58 88
bossanovapr@free.fr

international press
Tel +33 4 93 06 50 00
Matthew Sanders
Mob. + 44 7815 130 390
Charles McDonald
Mob. + 33 6 33 36 13 89

contact Cannes
ARP
Michèle Halberstadt, Julie Tardit
Mob. + 33 6 23 06 36 05
jt@arpselection.eu

Justin Kurzel certainly knows what he wants! At La Semaine de la Critique we do, too! His short film Blue Tongue – a rough portrait of two lonely teenagers – was actually part of 2005 vintage and did make a strong impression. Six years later, Kurzel strikes again with a feature-film which lives up to his promising first try. His capacity to film the violence of a declining world where the young are at the mercy of evil with faces hollowed by melancholy has remained intact.
Justin Kurzel, was born in the south of Australia and learned the trade in the theater. After a diploma from the National School of Dramatic Art in Sydney, he worked as a stage designer at Sydney Theatre and Melbourne Theatre Company. He also developed a taste for cinema in Melbourne University, from which he gets a diploma in 2004 with his film, Blue Tongue.
Since then, Kurzel, entered into the spirit of the game of music clip (signing videos of groups such as The Vines or Sleepy Jackson).
From his stage designer experience, he evidently kept a true capacity to set the scene and to fit in the body of atypical actors. He combines the musical pulse of editing with a moderate temptation for aesthetics, to build an unexpected style, a mix of outward lightness of the filming with the sly seriousness of the topic. The “uneven” account of Snowtown, based on a true story, often works like the altered remembrance of a sick brain (or at the least a hurt memory). Together abrupt and subtle, Snowtow, through its genius for locations and trash photo, signs the birth of a great film-maker.

Fabien Gaffez