Heir apparentForget the red carpet. Des Partridge attends a red dust premierefor a very different love story

THEtall bearded Aboriginal

man in the Lee Kernaghanblack hat stands anony-mously near the caterer'stent in a crowd of some

2000 who've gathered at dusk at thehistoric Telegraph Station on theoutskirts of Alice Springs in centralAustralia.

He's Warwick Thornton, the38-year-old Alice Springs-based film-maker whose first feature film, Samsonand Delilah, voted the most popularfilm at this year's Adelaide FilmFestival in February, is having itshometown premiere.

Thornton describes his work, filmedaround Alice Springs and featuringtwo indigenous shy and untrained14-year-old actors Rowan McNamaraand Marissa Gibson, in the title roles,as "a story of true love".

The free walk-in screening, with a

big screen erected between two ghostgums close to the site of the originalAlice Springs waterhole, where spot-lights illuminate a rocky outcropbehind the screen, is a triumph withthe crowd audibly reacting to thefilm's humour and drama on cue.

Despite light rain falling about 20minutes before the end of the101-minute film, the audience staysput, caught up in the moving lovestory filmed around the town of30,000 residents.

Hollywood has hosted numerousred carpet premieres — this one here,the first film premiere since theBritish-made version of NevilleShute's A Town Like Alice (starringPeter Finch and Virginia McKenna)53 years ago — is more a red dustpremiere.

Latecomers to the outdoor screen-ing have had to park up to 3km fromthe venue because of the huge crowdthat's responded to the free movie, a

sausage sizzle and soft drinks eventwhich has the national Alcohol Edu-cation and Rehabilitation Foundationamong its sponsors.

Several hundred indigenous movie-goers who have travelled on free busesfrom distant communities don't needencouragement to offer generousapplause at the end.

Apart from a brief introduction,together with cast and key crewinvolved in making the $1.6 million,Thornton stays out of the spotlight,but he's unlikely to remain in thebackground for much longer.

Samson and Delilah has been selec-ted to open this year's Message Sticks

program of indigenous films at theSydney Opera House on May 7, thesame day the film has a deliberate softopening on 14 screens in capital citycinemas around Australia.

There's also a continuing buzz inthe Australian film community thatThornton's film will be showcased atthis year's Cannes Film Festival's UnRegard section — a selection whichmay have been confirmed by the timeyou're reading this.

"I think Australians are a lot moreeducated and hungrier for indigenousstories that offer a unique perspectiveof their own country that they haven'tseen," Thornton says a few hoursbefore he heads to the TelegraphStation to check arrangements forthat night's screening.

The father of three children, a son,16, and daughters 13 and 5, is partnerof Beck Cole, also a filmmaker (whose"making of Samson and Delilah docu-mentary will screen on the ABC,which has rights to the first TVscreening of her partner's film, prob-ably next year).

Now Thornton is smoking, sittingon a large, brightly decorated couch inan airy space at Vatu Sanctuary, anoasis in this desert town.

The apartment building offers visi-tors from Australia and overseasaccommodation in a unique artisticenvironment. Central Australian art is

featured throughout the building,which last year served as productionoffices for the Samson and Delilahcrew.

There's a strong connection forThornton, as originally the buildingwas the headquarters of the influentialCAAMA (the Central Australia Abor-iginal Media Association) which hismother, Freda Glynn, helped establishin 1980.

Warwick, the youngest of her fivechildren, descended from the Katjypeople (many of them killed in whathistory records as the Coniston mass-acre in the late 1920s), was schooled inAlice Springs but dropped out beforethe end of year 7.

"I bummed around a lot," Thorntonsays, "but I ended up being a DJ, and Idid the Green Bush show on theCAAMA station, a period Thorntonrecalled in 2005 in one of several shortfilms which he made leading up to hisfeature, including the 2007 short Nana

which scored international prizes,including the Crystal Bear from theBerlin International Film Festival.

At 18, he enrolled for a videotraining course conducted byCAAMA through the Australian FilmTelevision and Radio School — at thesame time as Rachel Perkins.

In 1998, Thornton, after havingcompleted the BA course in cinema-tography at AFTRS, was director ofphotography for Perkins on her fea-ture film Radiance, for which Queens-land actress Deborah Mailman wonthe year's AFI female acting award.

"Some of the best cinematogra-phers in Australia came to CAAMAand gave us instruction, and youlearnt pretty quickly as you werethrown out on the road practicallyfrom day one — you were given thecamera told this is the battery, this isthe lens, go to it," he laughs.

Thornton says he shot "hundreds"of videos before he went to moreformal training in Sydney at thetraining school, and his short filmsmade when he returned to AliceSprings quickly marked him as afilmmaker to watch.

"I've had Samson and Delilah in theback of my mind for years, and Nanawas actually the five-page back story Iwrote for the grandmother character

in Samson and Delilah," Thorntonsays.

-••-"^. "I was writing a much bigger%" '-;¦ film to be my cinema debut,

cinema extraordinaire, the biggestdebut since Baz (Luhrmann), but itwas a monster, a period thriller set in amonastery and out of control," hechuckles.

"I was writing this, another Days ofHeaven, but something in my headtold me this is not the film I need tomake. I needed to make somethingsmaller, and more focused and morecontrolled.

"I needed to make something Ibelieved in, something I'd seenhappen.

"I was thinking about Samson andDelilah for a year before I sat downand started to write it.

"Not having had much schooling, Iabsolutely hate the writing part andfind it incredibly painful.

"I write English how it sounds sothere are a lot of numbers in my script,2 for 'to'," he says. "I do it all by handon pen and paper. I'm not a personwho discovers too much in the

writing, as I've thought it out from thevery beginning and know my charac-ters, how they feel, how they act, it'sall there in my head before I start.

"I had the initial draft for Samsonand Delilah in about three days — 60or 70 pages of script."

Thornton says completing the firstSamson and Delilah draft had turnedout to be perfect timing, as theAustralian Film Commission (nowincorporated in Screen Australia) un-der former chief Brian Rosen sent outan SOS for an indigenous featurescript via Sally Riley, now in charge ofScreen Australia's indigenous section.

"There was a call for submissions,and we were accepted and shootingstarted in March last year," Thorntonsays.

With Sydney-based producer KathShelper, who has worked withThornton since he made Green Bushin 2004, he assembled a small crew,most of them friends, acted as his owndirector of photography, often lugging

the 18kg Panasonic 35mm camera onhis shoulders for hours at a time, andshot Samson and Delilah in six weeks,working Monday to Friday so his

teenage stars could rest each weekend.His "Samson", Rowan McNamara,

grew up in the small Santa Teresacommunity about 200km southeast ofAlice Springs, and "Delilah", MarissaGibson — step granddaughter ofThornton's Nana star, Mitjili Gibson

who also appears as Nana in thefilm — lives in Alice Springs.

Both attended the local com-munity college, where Gibsonremains in year 10 while her

. co-star has dropped out sinceI working on the film.

While teenage petrol sniff-ing is at the core of the film,Thornton says he didn't want

to scare people away because

they feared it was going to bea movie about substance

abuse."I just wanted to

make a teenage lovestory set in an Aborigi-nal community aboutthe love between twopetrol-sniffingteenagers," he said."We do have a prob-lem with substanceabuse, and there aregoing to be people whowill say 'aaaggh! I don't

want to watch a filmabout petrol sniffers'.

"But this is a love story, and Ineeded the idea of love which isuniversal. It's not black or white,it's universal.

I "These kids became bigger%|d than my story, and we were just

*•¦ so lucky to find Rowan andMarissa."

Samson and Delilah opens May 7.Des Partridge was invited to the

film's Alice Spring premiere by thedistributors, Arena Films.

NEW talent ...far left, Rowan McNamara and Marissa Gibson; above, Mitjili Gibson;and, below left, writer-director Warwick Thornton on location. Pictures: Mark Rogers