Boxing Day

Kriv Stenders’ The Illustrated Family Doctor premiered at AFF05, though the big surprise was his quick follow-up, Blacktown, which created a lot of excitement about the possibilities for low-budget improvisational digital filmmaking in Australia. Boxing Day revisits this style, telling its story through a series of improvised long takes, each rehearsed, refined and re-shot in an intensive production atmosphere. It tells the story of a father's impassioned struggle to reunite his estranged family over the course of a single afternoon. Living alone on home detention, Chris is preparing Christmas lunch for his teenage daughter when an old friend turns up and exposes the disturbing truth about his ex-wife's new boyfriend. The film documents in painstaking detail, the harrowing journey of a family teetering on the brink of disintegration. As the situation escalates inexorably we are drawn into the compelling story of a father who must finally decide to expose the dark and disturbing secret that threatens to tear his family apart. Boxing Day was shot completely in Adelaide and produced by Smoking Gun Productions, the partnership between local stalwarts, Kristian Moliere and Shane McNeil ( The 13th House, AFF03).

Kriv Stenders, Kristian Moliere, Tammy Anderson and Richard Green are Guests of the Festival

Stylistically I want to play and sculpt with time in a very pure and unencumbered way. I feel it is a type of cinematic language that has not yet been fully explored in traditional linear narrative.

Kriv Stenders