Cannes wraps with standing ovation for The Tree and
two awards for Deeper Than Yesterday

Market Intelligence - Cannes 2010

Tuesday 24 May 2010

The Cannes Film Festival concluded over the weekend on a high note for Australian film with The Tree receiving a jubilant standing ovation and Deeper Than Yesterday being awarded a major prize.

Australian/French co-production The Tree proved a triumphant end point to the festival receiving a sustained standing ovation from the A-List crowd at the festival’s closing event at the Grand Théâtre Lumière. The Tree is an adaptation of the novel Our Father Who Art in the Tree by Australian writer Judy Pascoe and stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marton Csokas and Aden Young. It is directed by Julie Bertuccelli and produced by Sue Taylor and Yael Fogiel.

In the film’s first international reviews The Tree has been described by Variety as “a top-flight technical achievement for Aussie filmmaking,” and ScreenDaily writes The Tree is “a small, intimate, moving little picture”. The Tree will be released in Australia by Transmission films.

In addition, 17 Australian feature films screened in the Cannes Market this year, including current Australian releases I Love You Too and Beneath Hill 60 as well as the soon to be released Animal Kingdom.

On the short film front, Screen Australia congratulates the filmmakers of Deeper Than Yesterday for winning the Kodak Discovery Award for a Short Film and the
Petit Rail d'Or at the prestigious Cannes Critics’ Week. The Kodak Discovery Award, which includes €3,000 worth of 35mm film, was decided by a jury of film industry professionals made up of Pablo Fendrik (director), Nelly Kafsky (producer), Sabine Lancelin (DOP), Lolita Chammah (actress) and Trevor Groth (festival programmer). The Petit Rail d'Or was decided by members of Ceux du Rail (an association of French railway workers) and includes real pieces of railway track coated in gold. Announced over the weekend at a ceremony in Cannes, the high-profile accolades were presented to the Deeper Than Yesterday key creative team consisting of writer/director Ariel Kleiman and producers Benjamin Gilovitz, Sarah Cyngler and Anna Kojevnikov.

Deeper Than Yesterday is a 19-minute film, shot on a real submarine anchored in the water off Victoria. It was made as a final year production of the University of Melbourne’s VCA Film & Television School and explores the claustrophic world of Russian submariners after three months underwater.

Conceived by the French Union of Film Critics in 1962, Critics’ Week is run as a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival and has a tradition of discovering new talents.

“Every now and then you witness the debut of extraordinary Australian filmmakers. The team behind Deeper than Yesterday have created a truly original, ambitious and remarkable film. They have come straight out of film school and have made a huge splash on the world stage with this win at Cannes,” said Kathleen Drumm Screen Australia’s Head of Marketing. “We offer our congratulations and look forward to hearing about the filmmaker’s future projects.”

Also selected for the Cannes Film Festival was the short film Muscles written and directed by Edward Housden and produced by Nick Sherry.

Screen Australia supported the Cannes campaigns for Deeper Than Yesterday, Muscles and The Tree with grants towards marketing materials and travel and is proud to share in their success.

A video of the Deeper Than Yesterday Critics’ Week Discovery Award ceremony can be seen at www.semainedelacritique.com/EN/films/2010/mardi18/2010_photos.php

An audio recording of the official Cannes press conference for The Tree can be heard at
www.festival-cannes.fr/en/theDailyArticle/57857.html

For information about Australian films at Cannes 2010 visit
www.screenaustralia.gov.au/cannes10