The Furnace | |
---|---|
Directed by | Roderick MacKay |
Written by | Roderick MacKay |
Produced by | Timothy White Tenille Kennedy |
Starring | Ahmed Malek Baykali Ganambarr David Wenham |
Cinematography | Michael McDermott Bonnie Elliot |
Edited by | Merlin Eden |
Music by | Mark Bradshaw |
Production company | Umbrella Entertainment |
Release date |
|
Running time | 116 minutes |
Country | Australia |
Language | English |
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.
The film is set during the Western Australian gold rushes of the 1890s, and its characters represent some of the "Afghan" cameleers (who actually came from India, Persia, and other parts of the Middle East, and belonged to Islamic, Sikh and Hindu faiths [1] ) who brought their camel trains to help open up the Australian outback from the mid-19th century. Two young Afghan cameleers, Hanif and Jundah, form a friendship with an Aboriginal hunter, Woorak. Hanif is trying to find an illegal furnace so that he can melt two bars of stolen gold, which he acquired by chance after coming across Mal, the sole survivor of a group massacre. The two men have to compromise in order to survive the journey through the arid outback, while evading capture by Gold Squad officers. [2] [1]
The film was directed by Roderick MacKay, [3] his debut as director. [4]
Several of the Aboriginal actors speak their Badimaya language, one of many Aboriginal Australian languages which are endangered. [2] It was filmed in Yamatji country in what is now known as the Mid West region, in the Shire of Mount Magnet (Badimaya) and Kalbarri (Nhanda). [5] [4]
The Furnace was produced by Southern Light Films, Meaning Maker and The Koop, and distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Umbrella Films and internationally by Arclight Films. [4]
The Furnace premiered at the 77th Venice Film Festival in September 2020, [6] the only Australian film selected for the festival. [1]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 89% based on 18 critics, with an average rating of 7.1/10. [7]
David Stratton wrote "If the film has a flaw it's that it doesn't quite reach the satisfying climax it promises; it's beautiful, even powerful, but rather bleak". [8]
According to Jake Wilson of The Age , "MacKay is not lacking in talent, but for a first-time director he may have taken on a little too much. While the scattered quality of the storytelling may be partly deliberate, a bigger problem is the lack of consistent tone". [9]
Writing for The Hollywood Reporter David Rooney commented that the film "Smolders effectively, even if it doesn't quite achieve maximum heat". [10]
Xan Brooks of The Guardian called The Furnace "as tough as old leather and as unadorned as cow hide", [11] while Variety 's Jay Weissberg called the film "An enjoyably absorbing experience". [12] Lance Bakare wrote in The Guardian that he hoped that the film would help to highlight some forgotten history of Australia, giving the film 4 out of 5 stars. [5]
Award | Category | Subject | Result |
---|---|---|---|
AACTA Awards (11th) [13] | Best Film | Tenille Kennedy | Nominated |
Timothy White | Nominated | ||
Best Direction | Roderick MacKay | Nominated | |
Best Original Screenplay | Nominated | ||
Best Actor | Ahmed Malek | Nominated | |
Best Supporting Actor | Baykali Ganambarr | Nominated | |
The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a number of climatic zones, including tropical and monsoonal climates in northern areas, arid areas in the "red centre" and semi-arid and temperate climates in southerly regions. The total population is estimated at 607,000 people.
Welford is a national park in Central West Queensland, Australia, 991 km west of Brisbane. It is located 30km to the South-east of Jundah. The park was established in 1994 to protect the biodiversity of the Mulga Lands, Mitchell Grass Downs and Channel Country bioregions. The southern border is marked by the Barcoo River.
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Afghan cameleers in Australia, also known as "Afghans" or "Ghans", were camel drivers who worked in Outback Australia from the 1860s to the 1930s. Small groups of cameleers were shipped in and out of Australia at three-year intervals, to service the Australian inland pastoral industry by carting goods and transporting wool bales by camel trains. They were commonly referred to as "Afghans", even though the majority of them originated from the far western parts of British India, primarily the NWFP and Balochistan, which was inhabited by ethnic Pashtuns and Balochs. Nonetheless, many were from Afghanistan itself as well. In addition, there were also some with origins in Egypt and Turkey. The majority of cameleers, including cameleers from British India, were Muslim, while a sizeable minority were Sikhs from the Punjab region. They set up camel-breeding stations and rest-house outposts, known as caravanserai, throughout inland Australia, creating a permanent link between the coastal cities and the remote cattle and sheep grazing stations until about the 1930s, when they were largely replaced by the automobile. They provided vital support to exploration, communications and settlement in the arid interior of the country where the climate was too harsh for horses. They also played a major role in establishing Islam in Australia, building the country's first mosque at Marree in South Australia in 1861, the Central Adelaide Mosque, and several mosques in Western Australia.
Afghan Australians are Australians tied to Afghanistan either by birth or by ancestry.
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