Actor Phoenix Raei has started production in Victoria on his feature directorial debut, Rotten, a horror dark comedy.
Shooting in Emerald across the next three weeks, the self-financed film, written by Raei, follows a wildlife photographer who is bitten by an unknown bug on a remote island and is fighting the clock to cure a flesh eating disease. A shaman advises that the only cure is to eat other human flesh, though it must come from the correct ancestry.
Leading the cast are Nick Farnell and Kate Lister, with supporting cast that include Kevin Harrington, Anthony Sharpe and Daniela Farinacci alongside newcomers Erin Bridget Kearns and Andrew Doyle.
Raei and Lister, who are husband and wife, are producing Rotten through their production company, Once Upon a Time Films, alongside Farnell and Sharpe’s Love Hate Films. Raei and Lister also EPs.
The team also includes cinematographer Sean Windsor, sound designer Chris Clarke, make up designer Kelise Parsons, set designer Phoebe Sinclar, post supervisor/AC Jonathan Burton and costume designer Alison Wilson.
Directing has been on the cards for Raei, whose recent acting credits include AppleTV+’s Tehran, Mark Leonard Winter’s The Rooster, Foxtel’s Love Me and Netflix’s The Night Agent, for some time.
He remains attached to co-direct Aquarius Films’ Paradise with Rhys Graham, which is still in development, and has helmed a number of shorts including the 7 Storeys Down, Murder and Schnook, the latter of which shot in the US.
When the SAG-AFTRA strikes hit, Raei found he had a window to think about writing and directing his own projects at home in Australia.
Raei and Lister chose horror as their preferred genre, as such projects often don’t need name talent or high budgets to cut through in the market. At the same time, they wanted craft a horror that had depth and was substantive; Raei tells IF that despite Rotten‘s horror premise, at its heart is a drama about the willingness of a father to do the unthinkable for his child. The comedy comes in via Harrington and Sharpe, who play two Laurel and Hardy-esque incompetent cops.
Given his acting background, Raei says he thrived as a director in the rehearsal process leading up to the shoot. “Different actors have different needs, but I approach it from how I would like a director to approach an actor and how I would like to work with a director.”
While the team have received offers for other sources of finance, Raei notes at this stage they want to be nimble, and will instead wait until they have a cut to approach distributors, sales agents and the like.