Archive of films Lucky Miles / Lucky Miles

Australia
2007, 105 min

Section: Official Selection - Competition
Year: 2007

It’s the year 1990; a fishing boat bearing illegal immigrants lands on the Australian coast. Chance has brought together Iraqi engineer Youssif, Cambodian Arun, who’s searching for his Australian father, and jinxed Ramelan, a fisherman from Java. With laconic humour, the story describes the journey this peculiar threesome undertake in search of happiness across the vast, parched Australian landscape.

Synopsis

It’s the year 1990 and somewhere on the Australian coast an Indonesian fishing boat comes ashore bearing passengers from Cambodia and Iraq who are trying to enter the country illegally. Disenchanted by false promises, the refugees find themselves on the edge of the desert with three hundred kilometres to the nearest town. The group breaks up and chance brings together the morose Iraqi engineer Youssif, the placid but determined Cambodian Arun, who is looking for his Australian father, and the Javanese fisherman Ramelan, whose curse is to attract catastrophes of all kinds. Like Danis Tanović in No Man’s Land, in his debut, writer-director Rowland treats a political theme with laconic humour born of the absurdity of the situation, without losing sight of its humanistic dimension. The journey of this peculiar threesome in search of the happiness that is civilisation, is traced by an imaginative camera lens, which makes ideal use of the photogenic qualities of the vast Australian plains.

About the director

Michael James Rowland (b. 1964, Australia) worked as Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival of Arts (1987–94). He completed his studies at the Australian Film and Television School in Sydney in 1997, graduating with the short film Flying Over Mother (1996), which was acclaimed at festivals all over the world. Rowland has continued to make shorts over the last seven years, when he also wrote screenplays and directed features, documentaries and commercials. On the latter he worked with renowned cameraman Russell Boyd (Oscar for Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World). Rowland has written three books which he also illustrated. He adapted the best known of them, The Existentialist Cowboy’s Last Stand (1995), for a short film which won the Silver Hugo at the Chicago festival. The film Lucky Miles is his feature debut.

Contacts

Cineclick Asia
3F Incline Bldg., 891-37 Daechi-dong, Gangnam-gu, 135-280, Seoul
Korea (Republic of)
Tel: +82 2 538 0211, 12
Fax: +82 2 538 0479
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.cineclickasia.com

Short of Easy Pty Ltd
PO Box 777, NSW 2000, Millers Point
Australia
Tel: +61 419 692 905
Fax: +61 2 925 136 87
E-mail: [email protected]

Aerofilms
Milady Horákové 383/79, 170 00, Praha 7
Czech Republic
Tel: +420 224 947 566
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.aerofilms.cz

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About the film

Color, 35 mm
International premiere

Section:	Official Selection - Competition

Director:	Michael James Rowland
Screenplay:	Michael James Rowland, Helen Barnes
Dir. of Photography:	Geoff Burton
Music:	Trilok Gurtu
Editor:	Henry Dangar
Producer:	Jo Dyer, Lesley Dyer
Production:	Short of Easy Pty Ltd
Cast:	Kenneth Moraleda, Rodney Afif, Srisacd Sacdpraseuth
Contact:	Cineclick Asia, Short of Easy Pty Ltd
Distributor:	Aerofilms

www:	www.cineclickasia.com

Guests

Ina Park

Michael James Rowland

Film Director, Film Director

Jo Dyer

Lesley Dyer

Producer