Ryan Kwanten in RED HILL, a film by Patrick Hughes. Photo courtesy Strand Releasing.
Also Starring:
Director:
Screenwriter:
Producer:
- Patrick Hughes
- Al Clark
Photography Director:
Production Designer:
Editor:
Costume Designer:
Music:
Casting:
Sound Designer:
Distributor:
* Most external filmography links go to The Internet Movie Database.
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Red Hill (2010)
Opened: 11/05/2010 Limited
| Limited | 11/05/2010 | |
| Sunset 5/LA | 11/05/2010 - 11/11/2010 | 7 days |
| Clearview Chel... | 11/05/2010 - 11/11/2010 | 7 days |
| AMC Empire 25 | 11/05/2010 - 11/11/2010 | 7 days |
| DVD | 01/25/2011 |
Trailer: Click for trailer
Genre: Australian Crime/Thriller
Rated: Unrated
Synopsis
Young police officer Shane Cooper relocates to the small country town of Red Hill with his pregnant wife Alice to start a family. But when news of a prison break sends the local law enforcement officers - led by the town's ruling presence, Old Bill - into a panic, Shane's first day on duty rapidly turns into a nightmare.
Enter Jimmy Conway, a convicted murderer serving life behind bars, who has returned to the isolated outpost seeking revenge. Now caught in the middle of what will become a terrifying and bloody confrontation, Shane will be forced to take the law into his own hands if he is to survive.
A taut thriller which unfolds over the course of a single day and night, and told with explosive action and chilling violence, Red Hill is a modern-day western played out against the extraordinary landscapes of high-country Australia.
Director's Statement
I was ready to make my first film ten years ago. I wrote scripts that were optioned, but for various reasons I always found myself stuck in development hell. That is the most frustrating aspect of filmmaking. Unlike other art forms, you need loads of cash to create your vision, but of course nobody lets you make a movie until you've made a movie.
After many frustrating years watching from the sidelines while directing television commercials, I came to the conclusion that the only way I was going to get my first film made was if I just went out there and made the damn thing myself. From the very beginning I was inspired by filmmakers such as Robert Rodriguez, the Coen Brothers and Aussie legend George Miller; directors who made their first films outside the system and risked everything in the process.
When I sat down to write Red Hill, my goal was to create a story that I knew I could make on a tight budget. Unfortunately the finished script was loaded with stunts, shoot-outs, pyrotechnics, horse chases, car crashes and prosthetic limbs getting blown off... Oh, and did I mention that half the film takes place at night, in a remote town in the dead of winter? In hindsight, I probably should have used a little more discipline when conjuring up the set pieces.
Clearly, Red Hill was a passion project for all involved. We made the film independently, raising the money privately; the production went ahead with neither a distributor attached nor any government funding beyond a location grant. But I knew that if I could just get the film in the can and bash together an edit in post, I would have something viable to sell and the rest would fall into place. And thank god it did, otherwise my wife and two small children would be living in a cardboard box right now.
In the end, Screen Australia and Arclight came on board to help us complete it, but in order to get the film made in the first place, I pulled in every favour that was owed, or I could claim was owed to me from the world of television commercials. Because of this, our production was blessed with an incredibly dedicated and talented crew, many of whom were seasoned industry professionals. Only problem was we had minimal resources and only four weeks to shoot the entire movie. Sourcing second-hand film stock from Hollywood, we shot the whole thing using short ends from productions such as Entourage - Season 5 and the last instalment of the Fast and the Furious franchise.
Filmmaking at this level is gut-wrenchingly stressful, yet wonderfully liberating at the same time. Working under such tight and gruelling conditions, the function of the director becomes one of managing compromise. Going into the production, I knew we had bitten off more than we could chew, but that's the game, that's how movies get made, and in the world of indie filmmaking the rule is simple -- Quit your whinging and just tell the damn story!
I love westerns for the simple fact that there is no subtext to a bullet. They are stories built on the backbone of a moral code. Tales of men whose honour has been tarnished, whose lives have been wronged, men who seek nothing more than the simple taste of revenge. And that's exactly what makes the genre such a visceral experience for audiences. If delivered with right amount of empathy, vengeance can be a powerful motivation, one that audiences can root for. When making Red Hill I was inspired by films such as High Plains Drifter, No Country for Old Men and Deliverance. I wanted to tell a story that was lean, raw and mean, but above all else I wanted to entertain.
I've always felt Australia was ripe for a modern-day western; our landscape is rich in history and conflict. With the film shooting in and around an old gold mining boomtown in high-country Victoria, the production was able to capitalise on the stunning beauty of the mountainous region, giving our canvas an expansive sense of scale and scope.
When examining the vast Australian landscape, I realised not a whole lot has changed since the 1800s. Sure, instead of horses we now use cars and instead of mail we now have the benefit of mobile phones, but if one were to take away these modern devices, the majority of our small rural towns are still incredibly isolated. Red Hill taps into this sense of isolation, fusing elements of the horror genre with that of the western, all rolled together into a present-day cop drama.
Red Hill is my tribute to the western genre. It's about revenge, redemption and sacrifice. The character of Jimmy Conway is a representation of our dark colonial past. Over the years many stories have been told of the injustices suffered by Australia's indigenous community, but few had given them a voice of revenge - I felt it was about time.
