Ivan Sen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1972 (age 51–52) Nambour, Queensland, Australia |
| Occupation | Filmmaker |
| Years active | 1995-present |
| Website | ivansen |
Ivan Sen (born 1972) is an Indigenous Australian filmmaker. He is a director, screenwriter and cinematographer, as well as an editor, composer and sound designer. He is co-founder and director of Bunya Productions.
Ivan Sen was born in 1972 [1] in Nambour, Queensland, [2] the second child of Donella and Duro Sen. His mother Donella belongs to the Gamilaroi nation of northern New South Wales, and Duro was born in Croatia to a German father and Hungarian mother. [1]
Before moving to Tamworth, New South Wales four years after Sen was born, in his mother's efforts to escape domestic violence, the family would regularly visit her birthplace, Toomelah. The Aboriginal community there was the last destination of three forced relocations of the Gamilaroi. Founded in 1937 by the New South Wales government, Toomelah turned from reserve into mission, but is also called a station, and has a history of precarious conditions and harming policies. Sen's mother herself was taken away at the age of fourteen to serve as cheap, forced labour at a remote farm. [1]
For eight years Sen lived in Tamworth with his mother and two siblings, in an area called Vegemite Village. The family still visited Toomelah occasionally, and Sen enjoyed popularity and friendship with all kinds of children, both black and white, rich and poor. [1] However, wanting to overcome the difficult reality of the neighbourhood, his mother moved the family to Inverell. There, Sen was intimidated by the conservative, more racially and socially segregated dynamic of the town. Sen remained a solitary and silent teenager. [2]
The change put Sen into contact with painting and photography. [2] His mother married a newspaper editor, who gave him an old camera and lessons on photography and film-processing. Soon Sen was working for a newspaper and later enrolled in a photography diploma course at Griffith University, Brisbane. He moved on to film school at the same university and, one year later, to the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Sydney. There he developed views which were contrary to the classical model of filmmaking taught at the school. [1]
Sen went on to produce numerous short films throughout the late 1990s, including TV documentaries for SBS and the ABC.
During the 2000s he produced many documentaries, mostly for ABC Television. He worked with producer David Jowsey, who commissioned his first feature film, Beneath Clouds (released in 2002). [3] [4] This semi-autobiographical [1] film was made with a mixed crew, including an Aboriginal director of photography, a white producer and several Indigenous secondary crew members. At the time, Sen and the white producer Teresa-Jane Hanson expressed their discontent with the limited availability of skilled Indigenous personnel. [5] The film, produced on a $2.5 million budget, won him global acclaim, screening at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and winning the Premiere First Movie Award at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival and the 2002 Best Director Award at the Australian Film Institute Awards. [6] [7] [8]
In 2005, his SBS documentary Yellow Fella was screened in the section Un Certain Regard at the Cannes International Film Festival. [9]
In 2009, the Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival held at the Sydney Opera House saw the world premiere of Sen's Fire Talker , a documentary biopic about political activist, Aboriginal footballer, and statesman Charlie Perkins. [10]
In the same year, Sen and David Jowsey set up Bunya Productions, in order to produce their own films. They used the TV revenue from their earlier works to finance the production of his second feature-length film, Dreamland, [3] [4] [1] which screened at the 2010 Busan International Film Festival and Melbourne International Film Festival.[ citation needed ]
His third feature Toomelah (2011), received a prolonged standing ovation from the audience as it screened in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. The actors were welcomed with celebrity status and Peter Robb described Daniel Connors, the leading 9-year-old non-professional actor as "[handling] the international media like a pro." [1]
Sen's fourth feature-length film Mystery Road premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2013 and features many well-known Australian actors, including Aaron Pedersen, Hugo Weaving, and Jack Thompson. The film was shown at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. [11]
His fifth feature, Goldstone , a sequel to Mystery Road, opened the Sydney Film Festival in June 2016 [12] and opened in cinemas on 7 July 2016. [13] It features actors Aaron Pedersen, Jacki Weaver, Alex Russell, David Gulpilil, David Wenham and Tom E. Lewis. [14]
In 2018, Sen acted as executive producer on the ABC TV production of Mystery Road , a six-part series based on characters featured in the movie of the same name and sequel.[ citation needed ]
Commentators often point to landscape, land and place as one of the most crucial groups of motif in Ivan Sen's films. [2] His distinctive portrayal of skies, roads and low horizons are Sen's way of addressing issues of location, dislocation and relocation in their relation to identity. According to Jane Mills, "as a descendant of the Gamilaroi people of northern New South Wales who were historically dislocated from their own land and forcibly relocated, Sen's films are undoubtedly intercultural, diasporic, and postcolonial and, as such, qualify as accented and intercultural cinema". [15]
The documentary Yellow Fella focuses on the Aboriginal actor and musician Tom E. Lewis, who starred in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Fred Schepisi, 1978). The character's "life was hauntedly close to [Lewis's] own: a young man of mixed heritage, struggling to find his place on the edge of two cultures". [16] Sen documents Lewis as he hits the road to search for his Welsh father's place of burial and, at the same time, a missing part of his own identity. [2]
Toomelah (2011), tells the story of Daniel, a 9-year-old Aboriginal boy living in the community where Sen's mother was born and grew up in. A hybrid of documentary and fiction follows Daniel as he roams around the "mish" trying to make sense of expectations of his family, his friends, and his own. Much of the script was based on notes Sen took of the inhabitants' own words, expressions, ideas and emotions, trying to translate the immobility from which Toomelah suffers—a place that has both lost touch with its roots and been forgotten by its founding state. [15]
In recognition to his contribution to the town of Winton in Central West Queensland where Mystery Road and Goldstone were filmed, Sen was honoured with a star on Winton's Walk of Fame during The Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival in 2016. [17]
Short drama films include: [9]
TV documentaries include: [9]
| Year | Award | Category | Film | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Cork International Film Festival | Best International Short Film | Tears | Won |
| 1999 | Australian Film Institute | Best Short Fiction Film | Wind | Nominated |
| 2000 | Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival | International Competition | Won | |
| 2002 | Australian Film Institute | Best Direction | Beneath Clouds | Won |
| Best Music | Nominated | |||
| Best Screenplay | Nominated | |||
| Berlin International Film Festival | First Movie Award | Won | ||
| Golden Berlin Bear | Nominated | |||
| Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards | Best Director | Nominated | ||
| Best Music | Nominated | |||
| IF Awards | Best Direction | Won | ||
| 2005 | Cannes Film Festival | Un Certain Regard | Yellow Fella | Nominated |
| 2011 | Asia Pacific Screen Awards | UNESCO Award | Toomelah | Won |
| Cannes Film Festival | Un Certain Regard | Nominated | ||
| Cinemanila International Film Festival | International Competition | Nominated | ||
| 2012 | AACTA Awards | Byron Kennedy Award | Won | |
| 2014 | Best Direction | Mystery Road | Nominated | |
| Best Original Screenplay | Nominated | |||
| Best Editing | Nominated | |||
| Australian Film Critics Association Awards | Best Director | Won | ||
| Best Screenplay | Won | |||
| Best Cinematography | Won | |||
| Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards | Best Director | Won | ||
| Best Script | Nominated | |||
| Best Cinematographer | Nominated | |||
| Best Editing | Nominated | |||
| Best Music | Nominated | |||
| 2016 | AACTA Awards | Best Direction | Goldstone | Nominated |
| Best Original Screenplay | Nominated | |||
| Best Editing | Nominated | |||
| Australian Film Critics Association Awards | Best Director | Won | ||
| Best Screenplay | Nominated | |||
| Best Cinematography | Nominated | |||
| BFI London Film Festival | Best Film | Nominated | ||
| Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards | Best Director | Won | ||
| Best Script/Screenplay | Won | |||
| Best Music | Won | |||
| Best Cinematography | Nominated | |||
| Best Editor | Nominated | |||
| Sydney Film Festival | Best Film | Nominated | ||
| Toronto International Film Festival | Platform Prize | Nominated | ||
Beneath Clouds is a 2002 film by Indigenous Australian director Ivan Sen. It is the feature film debut by the two lead actors. Damian Pitt was approached by Sen on the streets of Moree, New South Wales, and had never acted before. Dannielle Hall was cast through a more traditional method, via an audition tape. Much of the support cast were local residents from Pitt's hometown of Moree.
Bart Willoughby is an Aboriginal Australian musician, noted for his pioneering fusion of reggae with Indigenous Australian musical influences, and for his contribution to growth of Indigenous music in Australia.
Tom E. Lewis was an Australian actor and musician. He was an Indigenous Australian from the Murrungun people. His first major role was the title role in the 1978 Fred Schepisi film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.
Aaron Pedersen is an Aboriginal Australian television and film actor. He is known for many film and television roles, in particular as Detective Jay Swan in the film Mystery Road, its sequel Goldstone, and spin-off television series. He has been nominated for many and won several acting awards, including the 2021 AACTA Award for International Award for Best Actor in a Series.
Toomelah is an Aboriginal Australian community in the far north of inland New South Wales, Australia.
Rachel Perkins is an Australian film and television director, producer, and screenwriter. She directed the films Radiance (1998), One Night the Moon (2001), Bran Nue Dae (2010), and Jasper Jones (2017). Perkins is an Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman from Central Australia, who was raised in Canberra by Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins and his wife Eileen.
Ursula Yovich is an Aboriginal Australian actress and singer.
Fire Talker is a 2009 documentary film by Australian filmmaker Ivan Sen. It is a documentary biopic about Aboriginal Australian political activist, footballer and administrator, Charlie Perkins. It premiered at the 10th Anniversary of the Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival held at the Sydney Opera House in May 2009. This festival was curated by Perkins' daughter Rachel.
Warwick Thornton is an Australian film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer. His debut feature film Samson and Delilah won the Caméra d'Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the award for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. He also won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Film in 2017 for Sweet Country.
Toomelah is a 2011 Australian drama film written and directed by Ivan Sen and starring Daniel Connors, Christopher Edwards, and Michael Connors. It was shown at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival on 11 May in the Un Certain Regard program, where it received a two-minute long standing ovation. The film's story takes place in Toomelah Station, New South Wales.
Kelton Pell is a Noongar Aboriginal Australian stage, TV and film actor, best known for his role as the court liaison officer, Sam Wallan, in the SBS legal drama The Circuit set in north-western Australia. Pell is from Western Australia.
Mystery Road is a 2013 Australian crime film with neo-Western elements and setting, written and directed by Ivan Sen. It was screened in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. A film sequel entitled Goldstone was released in 2016, and TV series in 2018, all featuring Aaron Pedersen as the brooding Indigenous Australian detective Jay Swan.
Mark Coles Smith, also known by his musical identity as Kalaji, is an Aboriginal Australian actor of stage and screen, sound designer, field recordist, writer, and composer. He is known for his roles in the feature films Last Cab to Darwin (2015), Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018), and Occupation: Rainfall (2020), as well as the television series Mystery Road: Origin (2022), and the Canadian series Hard Rock Medical (2013–18).
Goldstone is a 2016 Australian crime thriller film directed by Ivan Sen. It is a sequel to Mystery Road (2013) and stars Aaron Pedersen, Alex Russell, Jacki Weaver, David Wenham and David Gulpilil. It was released in Australia on 7 July 2016. According to the film's end credits, it was largely shot on location in the small town of Middleton, Queensland, Australia.
Mystery Road is an Australian television crime mystery series whose first series screened on ABC TV from 3 June 2018. The series is a spin-off from Ivan Sen's feature films Mystery Road and Goldstone, taking place in between the two. Aboriginal Australian detective Jay Swan, played by Aaron Pedersen, is the main character and actor in both the films and in the first two TV series, each of six episodes.
Natasha Wanganeen is an Aboriginal Australian actress. She is known for her starring role in the 2002 feature film Rabbit-Proof Fence, aged 15, and numerous television roles. Her debut film as co-writer and co-producer is the 2022 short film, an Indigenous sci-fi drama entitled Bunker: The Last Fleet, about an alien invasion of Australia, in which she also takes the lead role.
Erica Glynn is an Indigenous Australian filmmaker, known for directing, producing and writing documentaries and other films.
Kodie Bedford is an Aboriginal Australian screenwriter, filmmaker and playwright from Western Australia. She is known for her play Cursed!, and work on several television series, in particular the 2021 comedy series All My Friends are Racist.
Dean Daley-Jones is an Australian actor who played the lead role in the 2010 film Mad Bastards which was directed by Brendan Fletcher. He had a supporting role in Ivan Sen's 2011 film, Toomelah. He has also had roles in Australian television series Redfern Now and The Gods of Wheat Street.
David Jowsey is an Australian film producer, co-founder of Bunya Productions. He is known for producing many films made by Indigenous Australian filmmakers. Bunya Productions' co-owners are Indigenous filmmaker Ivan Sen, and Jowsey's wife Greer Simpkin.
This article first appeared in IF Magazine issue #156 (Dec-Jan).
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