By Simon de Bruyn
Radha Mitchell, Joel Edgerton and Isabel Lucas have flown to India to film The Waiting City, the new Australian feature from Cross Life director Clare McCarthy, which started shooting in Calcutta today.
The Waiting City tells the story of an outwardly happy Australian couple who journey to Calcutta to collect their adopted baby, but on arrival find that the arrangements have yet to be finalised. Soon, the intoxicating mystic power of the Indian city pulls them in separate and unexpected directions, and the vulnerability of their marriage begins to reveal itself.
Written and directed by rising talent Claire McCarthy, produced by Jamie Hilton, and shot by DOP Denson Baker ACS, the $3m budgeted film was partly financed under the Producer Offset, and is due for cinema release in late 2009.
A directing graduate of the Australian Film TV and Radio School, McCarthy has written, directed and produced a number of documentaries and short films in Australia, India, Germany and Mexico including Skin (2006), The Find (2006), City Edge (2005), Starbaby (2002), Panopticon (2001), Square Space (2000) and Tinsel (1999).
Her first feature film Cross Life debuted at the Sydney International Film Festival in and her documentary film Sisters – also filmed on location in India – was broadcast on ABC television in late 2007. The Waiting City was developed through the IndiVision program.