Radha Mitchell at the premiere of The Waiting City in Sydney
By Ashok Kumar
The DENDY cinema auditorium in Circular Quay dazzled under the shine of Aussie stars Radha Mitchell and Joel Edgerton where the Sydney premiere of their new film The Waiting City on last Monday night. The Claire McCarthy-directed film was shot entirely in Calcutta for six weeks, thereby reversing the trend of Bollywood films being shot in Australia. The film is set for release in cinema halls on 15 July
Claire, who wrote and directed the film, said after visiting Mother Teresa’s home in Calcutta (now Kolkata) three times, she thought of making a film there and, hence, The Waiting City.
“My personal experiences working in orphanages and within some of the poorest parts of India and also my experiences of making other films within this context, have offered me access into this rarely seen and unique world. Increasingly globalisation, the accessibility of travel, the high proportion of infertility of women in Australia in their late thirties and our fascination as a culture with exoticism has all been motivating factors to inspire this story.”
The Waiting City, Produced by Jamie Ashok Hilton, is a tale of Ben and Fiona, a childless couple, who travel from Australia to India to adopt a little girl, Lakshmi. On a mythological level, Fiona and Ben’s “soul awakening”; their dreams, fantasies and hero’s journey, take the audience into a parallel narrative universe. Ben and Fiona are forced to delve both into the shadow lands of self and into a realm of mystery, dreams and spirits in order to achieve their hearts desire.
Claire, Joel, Radha and Jamie at the Premiere of TheWaiting City
What they discover on their rollercoaster ride to parenthood scares them, shocks them, liberates them and forces them into a state of true catharsis – independently and as a couple. This is hopefully what distinguishes this film from a nice, polite, realist drama about a middle-class couple from Australia who try to adopt a third world baby and come up against insurmountable odds. In a brief pinpoint in time, we see a portrait of a marriage and a love story that has epic, mystic and psychological dimensions.
The Waiting City is an emotional, visually compelling and timely story that also has broad audience appeal. Radha Mitchell and Joel Edgerton, both wonderful actors, have brought an incredible authenticity, fearlessness and humanity to their roles. I am very proud of the many and varied contributions to the film from all of the wonderful cast.
On a personal and professional level, The Waiting City augments my fascination with the alchemy of poetic, humanist, psychological drama. My on-going collaboration with producer Jamie Hilton, the strength of our top class assembled creative and technical team and the generous commitments from our investors hopefully has ensured that The Waiting City is a startling and original project that will launch careers and offer a dynamic new direction for Australian cinema.
Radha Rani Mitchell told a waiting battery of newsmen and lens men that filming the film was anything but glamorous, with the entire six-week shoot in Calcutta.
“As much as I love India it is one of the more challenging places in terms of pollution and other aspects … but it can be inspiring,” she said.
“I had diarrhoea so that was an environmental element that had an impact and helped to break us down a bit.”
Joel Edgerton escaped the unpleasant side-effect. “I must have a stomach of steel,” he said. But in the movie, it was he who gets diarrhoea and Radha takes care of him.
Nasib Singh playing Dhol at the after party near Dendy Cinema
All the stars posed liberally for the lens people both at The Red Carpet and later at the after party where the famous Punjab drum player Nasib Singh made quite a few feet to tap to his beats. Among the others who walked the Red Carpet include Producer of the film James Ashok Hilton, former Premier Bob Carr and his wife, Arts MinisterVirginia Judge and Claire’s husband and cameraman Denson Baker.
