Arie Hirsh

DIRECTOR/WRITER - Max Hemmings

Max was accepted as one of the youngest in his class at AFTRS (Directing) in 2009, where he received the support to pour these disparate influences into realised films. Max directed his graduate film Wanderlust (2010), starring Jess Tovey and Eamon Farren, on 35mm as a result of it winning the Deluxe Grant. He forged creative partnerships with writer/producer Arie Hirsh and cinematographer Ross Giardina, both of whom he has worked with constantly, and whom he considers his closest compatriots.

Since AFTRS Max has directed campaigns for Violet Crumble and Steggles, and the well-noted Sydney Children’s Hospital (featured in Campaign Brief and Best Ads On TV). Recently he signed for representation by dynamic new production company Helter Skelter.

Believing that a film should only be made if you truly believe in it, Max elects to carefully develop his stories over time, until they are ready. As such, he and Arie Hirsh have projects bursting at the seams, one of which is You Take the High Road.

All of Hemmings’ projects - from the tortured lovers in Wanderlust, through beautiful young cancer patient Leticia’s “Vermeer-like gaze” in the Children’s Hospital TVC, to the ridiculous fury of the Cowie Brothers in High Road - have a through line. It’s visceral, direct filmmaking. Textures of pigmented powder and glistening gizzards, sounds of splitting skin and laughing larrikins. All of it goes towards one ideal; that their stories are felt, and not just ‘understood’.

CINEMATOGRAPHER - Ross Giardina

Ross Giardina began his path in Cinematography while studying Film Production at the Film and TV School, Academy of Performing Arts, Prague, Czech Republic, in 2003. There he won the FAMU Best Documentary for his film The Wall Stays (2003), and the FAMU Best Cinematography for Hotel (2004).

On his return to Sydney Giardina graduated from AFTRS with a Masters in Cinematography in 2009, when he was presented with two Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) awards for his graduate productions Legend and The Bridge.

Since graduating Giardina has won a number of awards for short films, commercials, music videos and documentaries, including Best Cinematography Deluxe for Wanderlust (2010), and a further two ACS awards for his work on the ‘O&M’ commercial, and the music video for ‘Paper Scissors’. In 2010 Giardina was nominated for best Cinematography at the prestigious Camerimage International Cinematography Festival in Poland for his film Legend.

Giardina’s credits also include Amanecer (Daybreak) (2009), which won Best Short Film at the Sydney Latin American Film Festival in 2011, and was part of the official selections for the Bogota Film Festival, the Villa de Leyva International Film Festival, and the Los Angeles Lation International Film Festival; and Dance Me to the End of Love (2012), directed by Martha Goddard which was selected as finalist at the Sydney Film Festival's Dendy Awards.

www.rossgiardina.com

COMPOSER - Basil Hogios

Basil is an award-winning composer, sound artist, and producer, working in film, television, theatre, dance, and album production. He was nominated for an AFI for his music in feature film Romulus My Father (2007), starring Eric Bana and Franka Potente. Currently he is working on the Dreamworks arena show of How to Train Your Dragon as composer and arranger, working with Jónsi (of legendary Icelandic band 'Sigur Rós') and renowned film composer John Powell. Recently he completed writing songs and scoring Andy X, the latest musical film masterpiece by Jim Sharman ('Rocky Horror Picture Show'), due for release 2012.

Basil has scored over thirty films, many of them screening in international film festivals and winning awards. For the stage, Basil has collaborated with some of Australia’s theatre greats on mainstage shows for Sydney Theatre Co, Melbourne Theatre Co, Company B, and Bell Shakespeare, and major shows at Australia’s international arts festivals. For television, Basil has composed for documentaries, telemovies, and many TV commercials. Originally trained as an architect, he as collaborated on spatial installations, and in the music industry, he arranged and produced the latest CD release of singer-songwriter Hero Fisher. He will be releasing an anthology of works in 2012.

www.basilhogios.com.au

COLOURIST & ASSEMBLY - Craig Deeker

Craig started out as a human-to-computer interface designer before moving into the advertising industry working in the dual roles of production management and creative/art director at companies like Y&R, Wunderman and Ogilvy and Mather. Craig then set up his own post-production company The Gingerbread Man working in many fields including art, music, advertising and film. Recently Craig moved into film production pipelines doing VFX on Recreator (2012), performing various roles in the delivery of LBF, Toomelah (2011) and Redd Inc. (2012).

www.thegingerbreadman.com.au

PRODUCTION MANAGER - Vianca Rechtman

You Take The High Road is a comedy about the psychology, the behaviour, and the apparent stupidity of holding onto grudges. Life's too bloody short. It's based on an urban legend, told to me by a Scottish friend, who heard it from another friend in a pub in Scotland.

At the same time it’s intensely personal. I recently had a falling-out with my best mate: August to my Trevor. A fistfight was stopped before it happened, and the result was his edict that he wanted nothing to do with me. Not ever. Weeks rolled into months, and I started to get upset. I thought, how dare he take a moral high ground and make me feel so bad? He's just as much to blame! He wants me to feel like shit? Well bugger him! For the first time I really understood how these feuds could fester; how my sense of pride could turn fraternal love into the stubborn refusal of love.

Stylistically the film will operate in a dichotomy between warmth and coldness; between a feeling of 'home' and a feeling of 'isolation'. While The Fiddler's Arms is 'home' to all the patrons, particularly to the Cowie Brothers, that feeling flips on its head when the isolation of their pride takes hold. It's all warm lighting, deep wooden bars and booths, worn-in carpet and Agnes' rosy-cheeked matronliness. But when she calls August on how solitary he really is, that same 'home' becomes the harsh relief of a sad, bitter old drunk. Then of course, it flips back on its head again, when the brothers are reunited in the last scene.

There are several motifs that work in this way. The brothers looking at themselves in the bathroom mirror - initially tired and haggard, the weight of their pride and their drinking pulling on their whiskered skin in the wan afternoon pub-light. Later, when they've reunited, their faces are content, the light becomes beatific.

The sonic elements will work similarly; the repetition of football commentary in the background - sometimes reassuring, sometimes tremendously irritating - will depend on the state of the relationship. This will also be at play in the anthropomorphic interludes featuring Highland Bulls, standing in as the obstinate, beastly representation of the brothers. Their animal demeanour will take on new hues as it is placed shoulder to shoulder with the twins’ behaviour. And as these interludes will be where most of the musical score takes place - something Baroque and ominous - that will assert the curious irony that is at the heart of the film.

While we find humour in the juvenile lengths the Cowie brothers go to in order to hold onto their grudge, we never know the true origin of the feud. Indeed, much of the comedy will come from the ‘booth gang’ - acting as Greek Chorus - conjecturing as to what the origin was. In not knowing, the audience is allowed to invest their own falling-outs and family quarrels. I have elected for the brothers' feud to remain unresolved in the end. A neat reunion creates a closed emotional circuit. Having the feud still festering despite the comical attempt to cover it up, leaves it lingering in the audience's mind. And it is truthful of the perverse resilience of human pride.

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