Advance tickets went on on sale at 12 midday today, Friday, for Tim Winton’s The Turning as anticipation builds for the world premiere on Saturday at the Melbourne International Film Festival.
The innovative film consisting of 17 stories based on Winton’s novel, each with a different director, premieres nationally on September 26, with two weeks of event screenings in the capital cities.
The three-hour film will be presented with an intermission and there will be Q&A sessions with the directors and stars. Attendees in those two weeks will get a 40-page programme and ticket prices will cost a few dollars more than normal, reflecting the event nature.
Robert Connolly, who conceived the idea and produced the film with Maggie Miles, is distributing The Turning in a co-venture between his firm CinemaPlus and Madman Entertainment.
Tickets are available via the website www.theturningmovie.com.au. The venues include the Cremorne Orpheum, Dendy Newtown and Opera Quays and Palace Verona in Sydney; and Melbourne’s Nova Cinemas, Rivoli and Palace Como and Palace Brighton.
The other locations are the Palace Electric in Canberra, Brisbane’s Palace Centro, Adelaide’s Palace East End, Perth’s Luna Leederville and Luna on SX, and Hobart’s State Cinema, all hand-picked by Connolly and Madman.
Connolly said all five sessions of the film at MIFF sold out within 24 hours, equivalent to 2,500 tickets.
Spanning 30 years, the inter-locking stories revolve around the turning points in the lives of the people of a small coastal community in Western Australia. “As characters face second thoughts and regret, relationships irretrievably alter, resolves are made or broken, and lives change direction forever,” says the synopsis. “This watershed film reinterprets and re-imagines the work for the screen.”
The 17 directors are a mix of first-timers such as David Wenham, Stephen Page, Mia Wasikowska and Shaun Gladwell, and seasoned hands including Connolly, Tony Ayres, Claire McCarthy, Warwick Thornton, Justin Kurzel, Jonathan auf der Heide and Rhys Graham.
Connolly hopes as many as 16 of the directors will be on hand for the world premiere at MIFF.
The on-camera talent includes Callan Mulvey, Rose Byrne, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Miranda Otto, Brenna Harding, Richard Roxburgh, Dan Wyllie, Oscar Redding, Robyn Nevin, Susie Porter, Wayne Blair and Mirrah Foulkes.