2009 Lucky Country

Director: Kriv Stenders

Script: Andy Cox

Producer: Kristian Moliere

Cast: Aden Young, Pip Miller, Hannah Mangan Lawrence, Neil Pigot

Aden Young stars as Nat, a small landholder barley hanging on to his patch of the bush in this gripping period film. His Daughter Sarah is just old enough to see herself as a woman, his son Tom just old enough to judge his father as a man. when three ex-soldiers arrive admits rumors of gold, the group begins to return on each other, and the cabin becomes a psychological battlefield in which Tom's loyalty to his father is put to the ultimate test. Kriv Stenders (Boxing Day, AFF07) turns away from the rough contemporary look of his recent films to channel the visual traditions of the Heidelberg School. He mixes in a claustrophobic tension, producing a work with richly resonance. Lucky Country places the fear of the bush, of being overmatched by something larger than yourself, beck at the centre of Australian culture, suggesting the tenuous way that Australians might ever claim t be at home in this landscape. One day your luck runs out...