Laurence Billiet and Rachel Antony’s The Giants explores the intertwined fates of trees and humans in a cinematic portrait of Bob Brown, who took green politics to the centre of power.
From a seedling to forest elder, the film interweaves Bob’s story with the life cycle of the ancient trees he is fighting for, with the hidden life of the forest brought to life by cameras rigged high in the tree canopy, immersive point cloud animation generated from 3D tree scans, and insights from David Suzuki and Merlin Sheldrake.
Billliet and Antony wrote, directed, and produced the project, with Helen Panckhurst and Paul Wiegard executive producing.
The creative team was rounded out by composer James Henry, animator Alex Le Guillou, sound designer Thom Kellar, cinematographer Sherwin Akbarzadeh, and editor Daniel Wieckmann.
The Giants was a General Strike and Matchbox Pictures production, with support from Screen Australia, in association with the Adelaide Film Festival and VicScreen. It was financed with the assistance of Documentary Australia.
The film will be released in cinemas nationwide via Madman on April 20.