Stan-commissioned thriller Nitram wins Australia's richest film prize | C21Media | News c21media.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from c21media.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
‘Evil ignored is evil repeated’: Why I will see the Port Arthur movie
We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
Dismiss
July 24, 2021 10.00pm
Normal text size
Advertisement
When news first emerged a few months ago that a major Australian movie about the 1996 Port Arthur massacre was in the works, I admit to feeling appalled and outraged that such a dark, violent and traumatic chapter in our still recent history would become entertainment fodder for the popcorn chewing masses.
Producer Nick Batzias, actor Caleb Landry Jones, director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant at the Cannes Film Festival premiere of Nitram.
Saturday, 17 Jul 2021 07:51 AM MYT
Director Justin Kurzel, cast member Caleb Landry Jones, and producer Nick Batzias pose during the screening of the film ‘Nitram’ in Cannes July 16, 2021. Reuters pic
Follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates.
CANNES, July 17 The director of a controversial movie about the man who carried out Australia’s worst mass shooting yesterday defended his movie and warned that the lessons of the Port Arthur massacre are being forgotten.
Martin Bryant killed 35 people and wounded 23 others in a rampage at a tourist spot in Tasmania in 1996 that so scarred the country that its guns laws were rewritten within days.
Several things happened when the lights went up after the premiere of
Nitram, the first Australian film to be chosen for the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious competition in a decade. The audience stood to give the film a seven-minute ovation. Caleb Landry Jones, who plays the mass killer at the centre of the film, was in tears. And then Spike Lee, head of the Cannes competition jury, came over to give him a congratulatory hug. Completely against COVID rules, of course, but Spike Lee knows what he likes.
Then the first reviews, embargoed until the screening finished, came online. “A hypnotically disquieting film,” concluded