Monday, June 30, 2008

Article - Sunday Herald Sun, June 15th, 2008

Will power

A FIVE-YEAR-OLD on a bouncy castle wouldn't bounce off the walls as
much as William McInnes does. It's 3.30pm and the Aussie actor
is so full of energy and excitement it's hard to keep up with him
as he goes from talking about his new movie, Unfinished Sky, to
cracking jokes about dogs.

McInnes, who plays John, a farmer who lives on an isolated property
by himself after his wife dies in suspicious circumstances, would
have quite happily traded his lead role for that of the dog.

``He was an amazing hound. He could do things . . . that if I could
do I would be a rich man. I wouldn't be in the nicest roles or
showing in your nicest cinemas, but I would be a rich man,'' McInnes
says, laughing.

It didn't take McInnes much convincing to accept the role of John,
though.

``It was in Queensland so it was nice to be going back home, it's
a good story and it was a chance to do something a bit different,''
he says.

McInnes says his prerequisites for starring in movies are the simple
things in life.

``If I get the chance to kick a football over a house that's a good
start,'' McInnes says.

``The catering is also a major deal maker. A good story and good characters
also helps.''

While many actors go to extremes to prepare for roles, according to
McInnes you just need to have a go.

``You just have to have a crack. You need to think about your role
and share yourself with other people on screen and turn up on time,''
the actor says.

While McInnes admits acting can be hard, he wouldn't have it any other
way.

``Most jobs are hard, but in a good way -- not as in they're hard
and you agonise about it. I'm not one of those wanky people who will
tell you that I suffer for my art,'' he says.

Famous for his roles in Blue Heelers (as Sgt Nick Schultz) and SeaChange
(as Max), McInnes is more focused on film roles these days,
which he got a taste for while acting in Look Both Ways, a film
written and directed by his wife, Sarah Watt.

``I just ate dim sims . . . and then got yelled at by John Wood,''
says McInnes of his 10-year stint on Blue Heelers.

``TV is a bit of a grind after a while because it just goes on and
on and on. With feature films, though, it's finite. It finishes
and then you can go on to something else. In that case it's a plus,
but I'm certainly not bagging TV roles -- certainly not if you
like doing it,'' McInnes says.

He has a suggestion to help boost the Australian film industry, too.
``It's in crisis and I'm the man to solve it. If they put me in every
film there would be no crisis,'' McInnes says, laughing.

``Seriously though, they just need to make movies with more realistic
budgets. There are lots of stories to tell and there's no point
in blowing, say, a $96 million budget on just one film. I think
the budget for this one (Unfinished Sky) was $4 million, which
I think was a healthy budget.''

Article - Sunday Mail (South Australia), Sunday 15th June, 2008

McInnes has great tail to tell

* WILLIAM McInnes is so full of energy and excitement, it's hard
to keep up with him as he goes from talking about his new movie Unfinished
Sky, which opens on Thursday, to cracking jokes about dogs.

McInnes - who plays the part of John, a farmer living alone on an
isolated property whose wife has died in suspicious circumstances
- is still in awe of a four-legged cast-mate.

``He was an amazing hound,'' McInnes, pictured, says. ``He could do
things that if I could do I would be a rich man.

``I wouldn't be in the nicest roles or showing in your nicest cinemas,
but I would be a rich man.''

He didn't need much convincing to join the project, which was shot
in Queensland - it was ``nice to be going back home'' - and gave
the accomplished character actor ``a chance to do something a bit
different''.

While many actors go to extremes to prepare themselves for roles,
McInnes - best known in rorles for TV's Blue Heelers and SeaChange
- emphatically doesn't.

``You just have to have a crack,'' he says. ``You need to think about
your role and share yourself with other people on screen and
turn up on time.''

Article - The Sunday Mail, Sunday 15th June, 2008

Love is in the air

Compelling performances bythe two central characters outweigh a climactic
letdown, writes Chris Bartlett

A RECLUSIVE Australian farmer has his lonely existence interrupted
when a bloody and beaten Afghan woman staggers on to his property
and collapses in this slow-burning Queensland-filmed romance/thriller.

Essentially a two-hander with nicely tuned performances from William
McInnes and Dutch actor Monic Hendrickx, Unfinished Sky is let
down only by an implausible climax. Still, you can't help but be
drawn in by these two badly damaged characters as they each rediscover,
through each other, their faith in humanity.

As expected, despite the language and cultural barriers, a bond develops
between them until there's the unmistakable scent of love
in the air, though events threaten to overtake them.

Writer-director Peter Duncan (Children of the Revolution) has based
the story on a 1998 Dutch film, The Polish Bride, in which an eastern
European woman forced into prostitution escapes from her pimp
and is taken in by a farmer.

Hendrickx reprises that role here, rewritten as Afghan illegal immigrant
Tahmeena who, almost literally, falls at the feet of McInnes's
widowed farmer, John, who takes her in, cleans her up and then
hides her, lying to the sleazy pub owner (Bille Brown) and the
town cop (David Field) searching for her.

Through grainy black-and-white flashbacks it becomes clear Tahmeena
has escaped from a hellish life as a small-town sex slave. Her
plight as an illegal immigrant and prize booty for low-lifes gives
the film its underlying menace.

But at its heart is the rehabilitation of the two central characters.
McInnes is especially good as the guarded but vulnerable John,
a good-looking man who's let himself go since the traumatic death
of his wife. This performance is up there with his work in the
excellent Look Both Ways.

Hendrickx, who speaks (unsubtitled) Dari for most of the film, is
clearly at home in her role, and deserves some sort of prize for
being the quickest student of English ever.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Sun Herald (Sydney) - Sunday June 1st 2008

'Our films have to stop trying to be something they're not'
Interview; Kristie Lau Sun Herald (Sydney)
06-01-2008

I mean, who wants to sit through a bunch of talking penguins again?' Actor William McInnes has strong views about Australia's movie industry ... and how he'd like the world to see him, writes KRISTIE LAU.

William McInnes is worried - but it has nothing to do with acting or the latest film in which he stars. "I'm no Brad Pitt these days, so I'm actually rather concerned at how tubby I look coming out of the tractor more than anything else," he says. "Do you think I looked tubby coming out of it?"

The former SeaChange heart-throb appears in cinemas next month as the star of locally made Unfinished Sky. McInnes plays John, a widowed farmer whose world is turned upside down when a beaten but beautiful stranger stumbles on to his property. As McInnes embarks on the film's promotional trail, preparing for another ride through the fickle world of fame, the 46-year-old appears to be more concerned with his interpreted masculinity than his skills as an actor (or whether or not we'll like the film).

"What did you think of my kick over the house?" he says about one scene in the film in which he shows off his footballing prowess. "It was a great kick, the footy went all the way over. Right?"

Shot in majestic outback Queensland, Unfinished Sky is a local interpretation of the Dutch film The Polish Bride. It's a confronting look at attitudes towards refugees and the threat of terrorism, among other political issues. Without giving too much away, John risks his life to save the beautiful stranger - an Afghanistan native working illegally in a nearby brothel.

McInnes says that although the film offers food for thought, audiences should not forget that it's a love story. "So many films bang on about serious issues for hours and this isn't what this story is about," he says. "It isn't trying to shove anything down your throat. It's a nice intimate story that prompts you to think about those issues but doesn't force an answer out of you. And I love that it takes you on a journey rather than forces you to sit through one. There's a great human dimension to the politics in Unfinished Sky without taking an easy route around the drama."

Grief-stricken John has been suffering for years since his wife died and McInnes says the character's inability to deal with trauma is important. "While John lets everyone down around him, he also lets himself down by not accepting the life he's been dealt with. In a sense, he has completely marooned himself, from the town and from the world, which you just can't do in reality. And this type of thing can happen to even the most intelligent people in the world." He says this behaviour is common among Australians facing heartache. "It's what a person can do to themselves when they don't move on ... they can bathe in grief and that immersion in grief and the darker thoughts that can occupy a human mind can really lead to a frightening place."

As an actor, McInnes says there were certain challenges in portraying this aspect of John's personality. "It is a detached, nihilistic view of the world which is very interesting to play because if you act like that you can look like Bela Lugosi [of late 1920s Count Dracula fame] who needs coffee. "It's a really bad thing to actively try and play so you've really got to sit on it a lot and invite the audience in. You can't comment on what you're doing. You just have to be, which is tricky because actors like to act."

McInnes compares acting to a game of Aussie rules football. "If you work with your team and use your team members effectively and everyone sticks to what they're supposed to be doing in the team, you're going to come out with a better result," he says. "But if you're too worried about what everyone is thinking of you and about your performance, you'll often let it get to you and it will get you down and you'll ruin the game for everyone."

When it comes to the state of the Australian film industry, McInnes says he isn't as concerned as others. He says people should "quit harping on about it", particularly without offering some practical solutions of their own. "Look, our film industry, no one has an answer for it, but everyone has an opinion about it, don't they? It's as simple as this - Australia just needs more great filmmakers making more great films. And they have to be genuine, real films with heart and guts. "Actors and filmmakers need to be honest about what they're doing. I mean, it's like people who think that farmers are conducting brain surgery. If we can tell a believable story about what people believe in, the success is half-way there already. In the end, you've got to deserve recognition to gain it."

He says the key to a great Australian film is keeping story content simple and accessible, rather than focusing on financial success or what international critics may say. "American films are just crap and so I hate it when people bang on about the financial element of Australian films. We don't have to create those big- scale dramas that they do over there that cost millions of dollars. Black Balloon [a movie starring Toni Collette that was released in March] is another good example of a film that does the same sort of thing as we've done. "Why do we have to measure a film's success by how much it earns? There are lots of good people making good films and you've just got to have perspective in the end and come to terms with the fact that we don't have the institutional support other industries do. The creative industry will never get the same amount of money that was thrown at our Olympic team in 2000, for example. No one gets rich making Aussie films."

McInnes says the local production of large-scale films, such as the 2006 Oscar-winning film Happy Feet, should be kept to a minimum. "Happy Feet is one of those big films that made a whole lot of money and it did a great job at entertaining but we can't have a whole host of these type of big-budget films coming out. I mean, who wants to sit through a bunch of talking penguins again? "Our films have to stop trying to be something they're not. There is a time and a place for big, obvious films but we need to tell more stories about what people want to see and when we're talking about Americans, they want to see more of Australia itself and the locals - plain and simple, stereotypical Australia."

Article, Daily Telegraph, Thursday June 19th, 2008

Refugees from a painful past

UNFINISHED SKY (M)
* * *
Director: Peter Duncan
Starring: William McInnes, Monic Hendrickx, David Field and Bille
Brown
Screening: Selected cinemas

The emotional life of widower John Woldring (William McInnes) is about
as parched as the paddocks from which he ekes out a living.

After the premature death of his wife in an accident, the second-generation
farmer is simply going through the motions.

Unfinished Sky, writer-director Peter Duncan's first film since Passion
(1999), opens with a series of visual snapshots that establish
Woldring's fragile state of mind.

The fortysomething loner hauls himself out of bed, performs rudimentary
ablutions, slaps pet food into a bowl and absentmindedly spoons
cereal into his mouth.

The black dog of depression is only partly alleviated by a real canine
companion, the loyal farm dog who follows Woldring wherever
he goes.

Everything changes, however, when a traumatised Afghani refugee Tahmeena
(Monic Hendrickx) stumbles on to his isolated property and
collapses. Caught on the back foot by the wounded interloper, he
involuntarily rejoins the human race, carrying her limp body into
his house.

Aware that something is seriously amiss, he tends to her with little
emotion but all due care and attention until she finally regains
consciousness.

Slowly, carefully, these two damaged souls find common ground, even
without a common language, and eventually fully-fledged romance.

Unfinished Sky has a thriller element twisted through it, too, flashing
back to reveal how Tahmeena came to be in such a predicament.
And revealing a dark underside to rural camaraderie.

This loose remake of the 1998 Dutch hit The Polish Bride, which also
starred Hendrickx, is well-suited to the new landscape into which
it has been transplanted.

There's a timely aspect, too, in the film's oblique reference to Australia's
harsh treatment of illegal refugees.

And McInnes and Hendrickx have just the right balance of controlled
chemistry as the unlikely couple.

An intelligent romantic thriller.
VR

Unfinished Sky Hits Number 10 at the Box Office

"The success of Unfinished Sky, ranked number 10 at the box office and the number 1 film at several cinema locations, demonstrates that Australian audiences will embrace quality Australian films," said Benjamin Zeccola, Executive Director of distributor Palace Films.

Unfinished Sky achieved a box office result of $265,573 in its first week on just 29 screens. The strong result will see the film’s release expanded to a number of regional cinemas across Australia over the coming weeks.

“I'm thrilled to cap off the financial year with another strong result for an Australian film. Unfinished Sky is quietly overachieving - even without a marquee cast or production budget. Like Razzle Dazzle’s $1.6m and Clubland’s $1.5m in 2007, Unfinished Sky shows that Australian films can attract crowds to the movies,” Benjamin Zeccola said.

“Palace Films was always confident that the affecting love story in Unfinished Sky, the brilliant performances by its lead actors William McInnes and Monic Hendrickx, and the film’s stunning rural locations would attract an audience interested in a quality cinema experience. Feedback from cinemas playing the film indicates a strong awareness of the film and terrific word-of-mouth.”

Unfinished Sky is currently playing all capital cities and opens today on the Gold Coast and in Wagga and Avoca Beach, with seasons in Darwin, Mackay, Toowoomba, Maroochydore, Cairns, Townsville , Newcastle nad Wollongong. Bowral, Nowra, Ettalong Beach, Sorrento, Castlemaine, Horsham, Laurieton and Orange scheduled to commence throughout July and August.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Article - Courier Mail, Thursday 19th June, 2008

She's not finished with Oz

Feature film experience in Australia turned Monic Hendrickx into a
fan, reports Rodney Chester

'William McInnes has that kind of Australian humour that is a bit
grumpy and direct'

DUTCH actor Monic Hendrickx admits to having a moment of deja vu during
the filming of Unfinished Sky, as she sat on a tractor driving
up and down a field near Boonah, southwest of Brisbane.

That the feeling of having been there, done that was just limited
to a few moments of her six weeks of shooting in Queensland for the
Brisbane-Dutch co-production is surprising, given she was playing
a role that she had played before.

Or at least she was playing a role that she had played before -- sort
of. Ten years ago, the then 31-year-old actor got her breakthrough
with her first leading film role in the Dutch movie The Polish
Bride.

She played a Polish woman who sets out to create a better life in
Holland, and falls for a lonely farmer who had never known love before.
Hendrickx had to learn to speak Polish for some of her lines. The
bigger challenge was learning to speak her native tongue -- Dutch
-- with a Polish accent.

While she was pretending to be in love on screen, the reality was
she was also falling in love in real life -- with movie-making.

"I just fell in love with the way of life,'' she says. "It's like
working in a circus. Everybody has his job and knows what to do,
and when it comes together and it falls into one place, the moments
can be magical.''

Hendrickx is clearly enamoured of acting in general, and acting in
films in particular.

"You blink an eye and it means something,'' she says. When she was
approached by Queensland filmmakers to re-create her role for Unfinished
Sky, she jumped at the chance even if the two films are
very different.

Instead of being Polish, her character of Tahmeena is an Afghani woman
who is on the run for several reasons. For Hendrickx, that meant
forgetting the Polish and learning the Dari language instead.

"Tahmeena is not like the Polish bride, she's not only an economic
refugee,'' she says. "The threat from outside is stronger in Unfinished
Sky.''

When I speak to Hendrickx, she's at her house, which she chose for
its big garden, about 7km outside Amsterdam.

She has just dropped her six-year-old daughter at school and is juggling
her commitments, as she's currently working on two films at
once. That night she has a shoot for one film, and the next day
she'll be on set for the other production.

"I feel very lucky to be able to make a living from acting. There
are a lot of good actors who can't say that.

"I feel really lucky I don't have an office job from nine to five,''
she says.

"In Holland, we have quite a young film industry and as an actor
you're always in the middle of the stress and you're not protected
from it. Those parts like Tahmeena you can really sink your teeth
into, and dive into that world, those parts are not available
every year, so sometimes you have to play the mistress or the wife.''
Hendrickx describes shooting Unfinished Sky as like the relaxation
of taking a warm bath.

"Nobody knew me over there, so there were no expectations,'' she
says.

"It was 10 years after The Polish Bride and it felt like refinding
your motive behind why you want to make films, why you want to
act.''

Hendrickx hadn't met her Unfinished Sky co-star William McInnes until
she turned up on set.

"You don't know if you can get along, and he has that kind of Australian
humour that is a bit grumpy in the beginning and direct,''
she says.

"But at the end we really clicked and we could get along quite well.''

It was McInnes who suggested that Hendrickx take her daughter to Moreton
Island to feed the dolphins, a memory she treasures from her
time in southeast Queensland. While she made the most of her weekends
to explore the area, she didn't get to see as much of the
country as her husband and then five-year-old girl, who used the
opportunity to take a road trip from Adelaide to Alice Springs.

"They were together in the desert for a week,'' she says.
Hendrickx says she would love to work in Australia again, but it's
a matter of convincing people she could overcome the language barrier.
Her ability to disguise her own nationality has almost paid off since
she finished shooting Unfinished Sky.

She nearly snagged a role in an American film playing another Afghani
woman, but the Actors Guild regulations meant that an actor based
in the US had to be cast.

Regardless of whether her new understanding of the Afghani culture
will further pay off for her career, she says she has already been
rewarded for it personally. Before Unfinished Sky, she had never
met an Afghani person.

"Especially after 9/11, people are more careful,'' she says. "I
don't know if that's a good way of getting along with each other.
"We have to let go of the fear and be curious to get to know each
other, because then it's going to be a better world. Eventually.''

Article - Herald Sun - Thursday, 19th June 2008.

Eye on the Sky

There's nothing unfinished about William McInnes, writes Claire Sutherland

PITY the poor schmuck on jigsaw duty on Unfinished Sky.

A recurring visual theme in the new Australian film is an enormous
2000-piece puzzle of the sky. As characters chip away at it, it's
impossible not to think of the department in charge of continuity.

"That guy is still in therapy. He shook a lot,'' star William McInnes
says with a laugh. "One quote I remember was `The bit that
looks like Tasmania'. It's all f---ing blue, man! What are you talking
about?''

Unfinished Sky is a remake of a Dutch film called The Polish Bride.
In the new version, an illegal Afghani refugee stumbles -- horribly
injured -- up the driveway of a remote Queensland farm, to be
found by reclusive farmer John Woldring (McInnes).

McInnes hasn't seen the original film, though not from any actor's
notion of not wanting to influence his on-screen decisions.

"It was pure inertia that stopped me from watching it,'' he says.
Dutch actor Monic Hendrickx, who played the titular Polish bride in
the original film, becomes the desperate Afghani in the new version.

"She thought this was a completely different film and that's why
she wanted to do it,'' McInnes says.

"This is an Australianisation of a film and that's the strongest
thing about it. It's just a solidly made film that has a really strong
narrative. It never loses sight of the fact it's an entertainment,
but it has a bit of a brain to it. Hopefully that will attract
an audience that likes that kind of stuff.''

The recent Lucky Miles, for example, took a firm stance on the politics
of immigration and refugees, but Unfinished Sky steers clear.

"That's not the point,'' McInnes says. "It doesn't lecture you in
any way, or tell you how you're meant to feel. It's not self-important.
It doesn't have tickets on itself. I think it's just a really
well-told story.''

Not having tickets is something important to McInnes. Whenever he
catches himself saying something that might be misconstrued as earnest
-- or worse, pretentious -- he immediately blows away the hot
air with a joke.

Take the matter of subtitling, for example. Hendrickx learned the
Central Asian language Dari to play Tahmeena, but the film's director,
Peter Duncan, chose not to subtitle it.

"I don't want to blow smoke up anyone's a---, but it's really confident
storytelling to say, `That works, we'll leave it there'. You're
not treating the audiences like dullards who need everything
pointed out.''

Or possibly there's another explanation.

"Probably couldn't afford it. She was making it up, I think. It was
all Dari to me,'' he adds.

McInnes has carved out a particular niche for himself in the Australian
entertainment industry. He's a regular in TV series and mini-series
-- from playing wartime PM John Curtin in Curtin to a corrupt
cop in SBS drama East West 101 to publishing a memoir (A Man's
Gotta Have a Hobby) and novel (Cricket Kings) and the forthcoming
mix of the two, That'd Be Right.

He was delighted to discover one of his books in the room where he
was staying while making Unfinished Sky.

"I tell you what, you know when you've made it as a writer. I've
been put in one of those Reader's Digest condensed books. I can haunt
holiday houses now.''

AND as any jobbing Australian actor, he's found himself in some mystifying
roles, including a made-in-Queensland US TV series about
dinosaurs, the title of which escapes him (The Lost World for those
playing at home).

"I played a German member of a squadron, with my fantastic German
accent that made me sound like Inspector Clouseau's younger brother,''
he recalls.

I had no idea what I was doing there, but I got to go to Wet and
Wild for a couple of weeks.''

Perhaps McInnes's most successful foray into film was in his animator
wife Sarah Watt's directorial debut Look Both Ways, a hit at
the Australian Film Institute awards and the box office.

Watt is now putting the finishing touches to her next film, My Year
Without Sex, in which McInnes has a tiny role.

"Blink and you'll miss me,'' he says.

The pair have decided to avoid working together as closely as they
did for Look Both Ways.

"It's not fair on the kids. We're pretty busy, both of us. She's
editing the film and also illustrating a children's book she's written
and I'm just finishing off my book. And we're renovating.''

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Event - Brisbane's Better Bookshops

WILLIAM MCINNES
That’d Be Right
Monday, 28th July,
6pm for 6:30pm start
Irish Club, 175 Elizabeth St, Brisbane


William McInnes is one of Australia’s most popular stage and screen actors, and with the publication of his memoir, A Man’s Gotta Have A Hobby, and his novel, Cricket Kings, he has become a much loved writer, too.

Join William as he discusses his up-coming book, That’d Be Right. The same mixture of humour and thoughtfulness that readers loved in A Man’s Gotta Have A Hobby is here in abundance, as William McInnes looks back over the last thirty years. Both funny and insightful, That’d Be Right is part memoir, part personal history of Australia over the last thirty years. It’s a biographical trip told through sport and families and William’s own experience.

Tickets: $15, concession $12, bulk purchase (6+) $10
American Bookstore: 3229 4677

Avid Reader: 38463331
Coaldrake’s Milton: 33670559,
Fortitude Valley: 38540188

Sunday, June 15, 2008

William Appearing in Brisbane This Week

William will be appearing at a screening of Unfinished Sky on Wednesday, 18th June, 6.30pm at Palace Centro Cinemas in Fortitude Valley.

For more information, click here.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Article and Competition

There is an article in The Australian newspaper from yesterday, 11th June 2008. Click here to read it.

And for another chance to win tickets to see Unfinished Sky, click here.

Trailer for Unfinished Sky

Promo Poster for Unfinished Sky

Thanks to Palace Films, here is the promotional picture for Unfinished Sky, which is due to be released next week:

Photobucket

Exclusive Event - Unfinished Sky - William Appearing

Exclusive Amnesty screening of the celebrated new film Unfinished Sky

To kick off Refugee week in 2008, Amnesty International Australia and Palace Films are pleased to present a special preview screening of Unfinished Sky (M), the highly acclaimed new film by Australian writer/director Peter Duncan and starring William McInnes. Unfinished Sky explores some of the complex dimensions of the experience of asylum seekers in Australia . Experience this terrific new film with director Peter Duncan and star William McInnes. AIA staff and volunteers will also be available to discuss the Amnesty International Refugee campaign.

Tickets for this event are now on sale at Palace Cinemas (http://www.palacecinemas.com.au/st.loader.asp?s=2&sid=48602&cinema=158) or contact nswaia@amnesty.org.au for more details.

When: Tuesday, 17th June
Time: 6:30pm to meet director Peter Duncan and star William McInnes at the Verona Bar. 7.15pm screening to commence
Where: Palace Verona Cinema, 17 Oxford St , Paddington
Cost: $8 concession, $10 Adult.
All proceeds to Amnesty International Australia

Saturday, June 07, 2008

More on New Movie

I found this article, on William's new movie, which is to be called Prime Mover.

It has an entry in IMDb here.

Unfinished Sky also has an IMDb entry here.

Article by William

Crossing to the other side
Melbourne Age, Saturday June 7, 2008

William McInnes

Our tolerance, and sometimes lack of it, is explored in Unfinished Sky, reveals William McInnes.

MANY YEARS AGO I WAS invited to the family dinner of a girl with whom I was friendly.

They must have thought I was a lot more friendly than I was because the television was turned off for the meal - a sign of deep significance to me, for the television in our house was seldom off.

The father and I stood and shook hands as I was introduced to him. He had been watching a television show called Wild Kingdom with his two younger children, a girl and a little boy. He went to turn the TV off.

The little boy asked to watch a little bit more, just to see who won the fight. Wild Kingdom was always about animals fighting or eating each other - which was a handy coincidence because the program was shown about dinner time. It was hosted by a man called Marlin Perkins and he would whine on about wildebeests, warthogs, lions and the like, while families and the big cats would both tuck in.

That night it was baboons. Their behaviour in the Wild Kingdom struck the father of the household as odd. Some new baboon was being chased off by the others because he wasn't from their tribe or whatever you call a group of baboons.

"Stupid animals. They're completely the same, look at them. Can't tell the difference. No wonder they stayed in the trees." We watched them fight and then he turned the television off and we walked to the table.

"It's not like those monkeys are really different from each other. Not like us - we can tell who's different to us. Look at these Vietnamese people that are coming in here." And he raised his eyebrows.

Nothing more was said about new immigrants or dim-witted baboons - indeed he and many others thought this quiet intolerance and suspicion was completely normal. His raised eyebrows were an indication of how easy and proper it was to recognise and deliberate upon the difference, the otherness, of the Vietnamese and ourselves. Us being Australians who belonged. We settled down to a feast of rissoles, gravy and Rosella savoury rice.

We chewed like a collection of creatures from Wild Kingdom and he asked me, "What do you want to do with your life?"

My only thought was - I'm not that friendly with your daughter.

That was more than 25 years ago but the idea of the acceptance or non-acceptance of otherness is still with us; indeed, it is an underlying idea of the film Unfinished Sky.

In the Oxford dictionary, otherness is defined as the quality or the fact of being different. Otherness comes in many forms. My mother was full of advice about the dangers of otherness - never trust people who had no lobes to their ears or if they had webbing between their toes or if their eyes were too close together. My father never liked people with beards and was wary of left-handers.

There are more homespun ideas about otherness. But the most obvious idea of otherness was that which struck the father of the household all those years ago - that of religious or racial otherness.

In those terms then we and the baboons from Wild Kingdom have some common ground. If something is different, then more often that not it is regarded with fear and suspicion.

For difference means change and dealing with change reminds us of many things.

Mostly it reminds us that we are temporary, our lives are finite and so if together we can build community, culture, and a system of beliefs and values, then we have a sense of permanency.
Otherness makes us question our certainty. And I think there is a fundamental apprehension, and perhaps even fear, about things that are different.

That is the emotion felt by the characters in Unfinished Sky.

The appearance of a stranger makes other characters behave in certain ways, ostensibly to defend their positions. So at first the stranger, the vessel of otherness, is ignored, then engaged and, in turn, attacked and defended. This theme isn't overplayed - it's entertainment after all - but hopefully entertainment with a bit of brain.

If the film reflects one thing, it's the idea that nobody is hard and fast in their character make-up. We are layered. And even though otherness can be uncomfortable, it can also enrich. How we deal with otherness gives an example of a particular Australian characteristic.

We are very good at being world-beaters and even better at thinking we are the world's worst.
The truth lies somewhere in the middle. In the first decade of federation, Australia racked up a string of social changes that celebrated and included otherness: women were given the vote, a system of industrial arbitration was initiated, the idea that there should be opportunity for all abounded, and rugged individualism was held to be a national creed.

Yet hand in hand with this was a raging sectarianism and the implementation of the White Australia Policy.

To an extent these aspects of Australia still exist in varying forms. We remember the Australia Day riots on the beaches of Sydney and the institutional bewilderment at coming to terms with the intricacy of indigenous Australian issues. And yet the ledger is weighed heavily in favour of Australia. We have a society that is multi-racial and diverse in make-up, and a justice system and bureaucracy that seeks to protect and enhance the idea of Australia being a tolerant and accepting society.

Australia is an isolated country that still in many ways defines itself with homogeneous icons that belong to an earlier idea of itself. Sun-bronzed lifesavers and slouch-hatted diggers. We gradually change as otherness is assimilated into a dominant Australian culture. Australia may sometimes be tentative in taking steps, but nevertheless heads roughly in the right direction when the question of otherness is raised.

As in the film Unfinished Sky, there is a dividend when otherness is embraced, for it is a two-way interaction. It may take time but I think that is the key to living with otherness.

Not so long ago I trotted along the beach in the town where I grew up. My name was called out and I turned to see the woman I was once friendly with. I walked over to the barbecue area where she stood with her family. We chatted for a while and laughed about the rissoles, gravy and savoury rice. The smells of snags and onions mixed with those of rice paper rolls and coriander.

She called out to her father, who was playing with his grandchildren. One had fallen and he picked up a small child and cuddled her and made her laugh with funny faces. Another man of similar age stood close and waved at the little girl. "She'll be right, two granddads to spoil her," said the woman.

The men came over and said hello.

"Grandkids wearing you out?" I asked.

"No way. Love 'em. They're just too much fun. This is the latest edition. My son's girl."

I remembered the little boy who wanted to watch the baboons fight. His granddaughter smiled at her pop and pulled at his cap. Her other granddad waved a finger. He was Vietnamese, as was his wife.

The two old men laughed together. The boy who had wanted to watch the fight had grown up and married a first-generation Australian girl from Vietnamese parents.

Time goes by and things change and we choose, I suppose, to try and resist the change that otherness can bring. Or we can be like the old man embracing his grandchild, embrace it and grow. And, as for the baboons, well, I'll leave them to Marlin Perkins.

Unfinished Sky opens on June 19. William McInnes will answer questions after special screenings at 4 pm on June 15 at Nova and 6pm at Como.

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Friday, June 06, 2008

New Film - Title Yet Unknown.

According to this article in the Dubbo Daily Liberal newspaper, William is currently making a new film with Gyton Grantley (Underbelly), Michael Dorman (Suburban Mayhem, Secret Life of Us), Ben Mendelsohn, and Emily Barclay (Suburban Mayhem) which is a ‘diesel-charged love story’ about the love shared by a man, a woman and his truck.

I will share more information as it comes to light.

Win Tickets to Unfinished Sky

In Film Australia is giving away tickets to Unfinished Sky

To enter, go to:

http://www.infilm.com.au/?p=344

Official Website: Unfinished Sky

Palace Films have notified me of an official website for Unfinished Sky, William's latest movie which will be released on June 19th. Go to:

www.unfinishedsky.com

It has a trailer, gallery, reviews and a detailed synopsis.

And watch this space for more info from Palace Films about this wonderful new Australian movie.