Force of Destiny | |
---|---|
Directed by | Paul Cox |
Written by | Paul Cox |
Produced by | Mark Patterson Maggie Miles Baby Mathew Somatheeram. |
Starring | David Wenham |
Release date |
|
Country | Australia |
Language | English |
Force of Destiny is a 2015 Australian film written and directed by Paul Cox. It was Cox's last feature. It starred David Wenham. [1]
A sculptor, Robert, who lives and works by himself outside Melbourne discovers he has terminal liver cancer. He shuts down emotionally until he meats a marine biologist, Maya,
The film screened at the Melbourne Internationa Film Festival.
The Hollywood Reporter wrote the film "constitutes a series of scenes repeated with variation in pitch: Robert in hospital, Robert fretted over by his wife and daughter, then soothed by the devotion of Maya. The character of Maya is solicitous, unquestioning, mysterious but earthy: a flattened version of a real woman... the Indian sections in Force of Destiny — in which Maya returns to India to be by the bedside of her uncle (Mohan Agashe), also stricken by cancer — feel organic only to the film’s financing." [5]
The cinema of Australia began with the 1906 production of The Story of the Kelly Gang, arguably the world's first feature film. Since then, Australian crews have produced many films, a number of which have received international recognition. Many actors and filmmakers with international reputations started their careers in Australian films, and many of these have established lucrative careers in larger film-producing centres such as the United States.
Courteney Bass Cox is an American actress and filmmaker. She rose to international prominence for playing Monica Geller in the NBC sitcom Friends (1994–2004) and Gale Weathers in the horror film franchise Scream (1996–present). Her accolades include a Screen Actors Guild Award, nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
David Wenham is an Australian actor who has appeared in film, television and theatre. He is known for his roles as Faramir in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Friar Carl in Van Helsing and Van Helsing: The London Assignment, Dilios in 300 and its sequel 300: Rise of an Empire, Al Parker in Top of the Lake, Lieutenant John Scarfield in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and Hank Snow in Elvis. He is known in his native Australia for his role as Diver Dan in SeaChange and Price Galese in Les Norton.
Robert James Ellis was an Australian writer, journalist, filmmaker, and political commentator. He was a student at the University of Sydney at the same time as other notable Australians including Clive James, Germaine Greer, Les Murray, John Bell, Robert Hughes and Mungo McCallum. He lived in Sydney with the author and screenwriter Anne Brooksbank; they had three children.
Jacqueline Susan McKenzie is an Australian film and stage actress.
Jesse Gordon Spencer is an Australian actor. He is known for his roles as Billy Kennedy on the Australian soap opera Neighbours (1994–2022), for which he was nominated for two Logie Awards, Dr. Robert Chase on the American medical drama House (2004–2012) and Captain Matthew Casey on the American drama Chicago Fire (2012–2024).
Paulus Henrique Benedictus Cox, known as Paul Cox, was a Dutch-Australian filmmaker who has been recognised as "Australia's most prolific film auteur".
Robert Connolly is an Australian film director, producer, and screenwriter based in Melbourne, Victoria. He is best known as the director and writer of the feature films Balibo, Three Dollars, The Bank and The Dry and its sequel, as well as the producer of Romulus, My Father and The Boys. He is head of the film distribution company, Footprint Films, owned by Arenafilms.
Gregory "Greg" Jonathon Stone is an Australian actor who has appeared in films, television and on stage.
Cosi is a 1996 Australian comedy drama film directed by Mark Joffe. Louis Nowra wrote both the screenplay and the 1992 play on which it was based. The story is loosely based on Nowra's own experience at producing Trial by Jury at Plenty Mental Hospital in suburban Melbourne in 1971.
Out of the Dark is a 2014 English-language supernatural thriller film starring Julia Stiles, Scott Speedman, and Stephen Rea. The independent Spanish-Colombian co-production is directed by Lluís Quílez based on a screenplay by Alex Pastor, David Pastor, and Javier Gullón. Filming took place in Colombia between April 2013 and July 2013, after which it entered post-production. The film premiered at Germany's Fantasy Filmfest on August 27, 2014.
Anil Acharya is an Indian Bengali scholar, essayist, short story writer and poet. In 1966, he founded the Bengali literary quarterly and little magazine Anustup.
Paper Planes is a 2015 Australian 3D children's drama film directed by Robert Connolly, which he co-wrote with Steve Worland and co-produced with Liz Kearney and Maggie Miles. The film stars Sam Worthington, David Wenham, Deborah Mailman, and Ed Oxenbould. The film tells a story about Dylan, a young boy who lives in Australia, who finds out that he has a talent for making paper planes and dreams of competing in the World Paper Plane Championships in Japan.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is a 2015 American action comedy film directed by Andy Fickman and written by Kevin James and Nick Bakay. It is the sequel to 2009's Paul Blart: Mall Cop. In addition to James, Shirley Knight, Jayma Mays and Raini Rodriguez also reprise their roles with Gary Valentine playing a different character and Neal McDonough joining the cast. The film follows mall security guard Paul Blart (James), who is invited to a security officers' convention in Las Vegas and must stop a heist at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel.
Maya the Bee is a 2014 animated comedy adventure film directed by Alexs Stadermann, loosely based on the 1975 anime Maya the Bee as well as indirectly on the German children's book The Adventures of Maya the Bee by Waldemar Bonsels. The first animated film in the Maya the Bee franchise, it was produced by Studio 100 Animation and Buzz Studios, and distributed by StudioCanal in Australia and by Universum Film in Germany. It features the voices of Coco Jack Gillies, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Noah Taylor, Richard Roxburgh, Jacki Weaver, Justine Clarke, The Umbilical Brothers, and Miriam Margolyes.
Lion is a 2016 Australian biographical drama film directed by Garth Davis from a screenplay by Luke Davies based on the 2013 non-fiction book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley. The film stars Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, Rooney Mara, David Wenham, and Nicole Kidman, as well as Abhishek Bharate, Divian Ladwa, Priyanka Bose, Deepti Naval, Tannishtha Chatterjee, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. It tells the true story of how Brierley, 25 years after being separated from his family in India, sets out to find them. It was a joint production between Australia and the United Kingdom.
Human Capital is a 2019 American-Italian drama film directed by Marc Meyers. The screenplay by Oren Moverman is based on the 2004 Stephen Amidon novel of the same name, which was also adapted into the 2013 Italian film by Paolo Virzì. The film stars Liev Schreiber, Marisa Tomei, Peter Sarsgaard, Maya Hawke, Alex Wolff, Betty Gabriel, Aasif Mandvi, Paul Sparks and Fred Hechinger.
Trefor Prest is a Welsh-born Australian sculptor living in Victoria since 1961. He produces highly-finished intricate and puzzling, often humorous, quasi-mechanical or machine-age constructions that are the subject of solo shows in major public and commercial galleries and feature in national and international group exhibitions, including the Mildura Sculpture Triennials.
The Furnace is a 2020 Australian adventure drama film written and directed by Roderick MacKay. Set in the Western Australian outback during the goldrushes of the 1890s, the film's characters include "Afghan" cameleers, a white gold thief, and local Aboriginal people. It was nominated for several AACTA Awards.
Prisoner's Daughter is a 2022 American drama film directed by Catherine Hardwicke, written by Mark Bacci, and starring Kate Beckinsale and Brian Cox. The film premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released in the United States on June 30, 2023, by Vertical Entertainment.