Press Release from RavageFilm
Short film, ‘Ravage’, has been named as a finalist of the 2013 Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films and nominated for Best Live Action Short and The Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director.
Sponsored by Dendy Cinemas for 25 years, these awards have launched and aided the careers of many Australian filmmakers. The finalists in this year’s awards will screen together in one session on 15 June at 4pm at Event Cinemas 4 and 16 June at 11am Event Cinemas 8.
Directed by Jaime Lewis, written by Joshua Longhurst and produced by Leonie Rothwell, ‘Ravage’ follows the last days of a complicated clandestine affair between a young school teacher (Ashley Ricardo) and her 17-year old student (Joshua Longhurst). The film is a bold and confronting exploration of power and the abuse of it as well as the complexities between the idea of consent and duty of care.
“Beautifully shot and precisely acted, with a sparse score that arises organically from the material, ‘Ravage’ impresses for telling its deeply confronting story without sensationalism or judgment; it is certainly dark but it’s never lurid. It manages to mine intricate and dangerous emotions and motivations in its scant running time, and represents a very assured debut for director Jaime Lewis.”
CJ Johnson
Movieland and Tony Delroy’s Nightlife
ABC Radio
The ‘Ravage’ creative team is made up of several new faces to Australian filmmaking. Director Jaime Lewis studied at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in 2009 and has worked on an extensive range of productions in varied roles over the last 4 years. ‘Ravage’ marks her directorial debut.
Joshua Longhurst is a young Sydney based actor, who studied at The Australian Theatre for Young People. Having never studied writing formally he applied and was selected as a participant of the young writers 2011 program facilitated by Metro Screen and ArtStart NSW where he developed the screenplay for Ravage. Ravage is his first produced short screenplay. Joshua is currently working on several new short scripts and a feature adaptation of Ravage.
This is Producer Leonie Rothwell’s first short film having made the jump from working in senior management positions. She has worked with Azure Productions over the last year on a range of films and assisted in the German Documentary, ‘Rodicas’ (selected in the 2012 International Berlin Film Festival). Leonie now continues her focus on producing film and documentary.
‘Ravage’ has cinematography by Emmy nominated and ACS Gold Award recipient Tom Gleeson, editing by Kenny Ang and sound design by Sasha Zastavnikovic. It features brave performances from Ashley Ricardo (Grace), Heather Mitchell (The Great Gatsby, Crownies, Rake), and Joshua Longhurst, Michael Yore and Rebecca Lee Slade in their screen debut.
‘Ravage’ was developed and produced through Metro Screen and Screen NSW’s 2012 First Breaks initiative which provides an opportunity for emerging filmmakers to create and develop a film all the way to screening.