Just off a plane from Tokyo to accept another accolade in his decorated career, Baz Luhrmann has news about his upcoming Joan of Arc film. The director of Moulin Rouge!, The Great Gatsby and Elvis has cast little-known 18-year-old Brit Isla Johnston in the central role and will start shooting in the new year.
And while there have been intermittent fears among filmmakers that President Trump’s mooted tariff on American films shooting overseas might force them to relocate to the US, Luhrmann will do as he did with Elvis and shoot Jehanne d’Arc on the Gold Coast.
Baz Luhrmann at the AACTA announcement on the Gold Coast.Credit: Getty Images
“If I said anything about tariffs, it would be out of date tomorrow,” he said. “What we need to focus on is that we can make any story at any scale for global audiences [in Australia].”
Luhrmann was speaking on what he called “the Goldie” after the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts announced he and his wife and creative partner, Catherine Martin, as its new ambassadors, joining AACTA president Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and George Miller.
He said it was an honour that was especially appreciated because it was “home acknowledgment”.
Baz Luhrmann and Isla Johnston, who will play Joan of Arc, at Paris Fashion Week in October.Credit: Getty Images for Loewe
The academy was also launching the AACTA Festival – five days of premieres, retrospective screenings, a careers expo and sessions featuring filmmakers, actors, cinematographers, film executives and others on the Gold Coast next February.
Chief executive of the academy, Damian Trewhella, wants the festival to attract film community members from around the country.
“The awards create this gravitational force that brings hundreds of our leading filmmakers, storytellers and creatives together,” he said. “If we can get those guys to unpack what they’re doing – their work, their struggles, their visions, what they’re trying to do – in a very collaborative space, people can learn and listen and be inspired and meet like-minded people.”
Luhrmann’s most recent film, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, will have its Australian premiere at the festival before opening around the world.
While they were fixtures in Sydney for decades, the couple, their children and their key collaborators are all based on the holiday strip.
With Thomas Keneally’s 1974 novel Blood Red Sister Rose as “the jumping-off point”, Luhrmann and British playwright Ava Pickett have written the script for Jehanne d’Arc, the story of a 17-year-old girl who, possessed by divine voices and visions, saves France in battle before being burned at the stake in the 1400s.
“I have taken every single step that Jehanne d’Arc has taken,” he said of his research. “I feel a bit silly saying this – it sounds a bit madcap – but I even learned in northern England to ride in armour to see what it felt like. I was shocked at how not heavy armour actually is.”
Luhrmann said Johnston, best known as the young version of Anya Taylor-Joy’s chess star in The Queen’s Gambit, owned the role during a casting session.
“This story is a clarion cry to the young generation to say this is their time,” he said. “In a moribund world that’s caught up in fighting and fatigue, a young person comes along and changes history … the ripple effect through time is that old world is replaced by the new youthful energy.”
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
Most Viewed in Culture
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
