The Sound of One Hand Clapping

Profiles

ROLF DE HEER

Having written, produced and directed feature films for nearly two decades, De Heer has become on of Australia's leading filmmakers. His films consistently challenge moral conventions and push boundaries of the filmmaker's art. Some early films include Incident at Raven's Gate (1987) and Dingo (1990). Bad Boy Bubby (1993) about the adventures of a child-man seeing the world for the first time. Bad Boy Bubby won immediate international acclaim and won four AFI awards and other international awards. In 1997 De Heer directed Dance Me to My Song which was chosen for the Cannes Film Festival. He produced The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997) which was chosen to debut at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. De Heer has been awarded accolades such the Best Film at the 2002 Circle of Film Critics Awards and the 2002 IF Awards for The Tracker (2002) and Alexandra's Project (2003) won national and international acclaim .

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When producer Rolf de Heer first read the script for The Sound of One Hand Clapping , he broke into sobs. "I was a mess for four days," he recalls. "It was the most emotional reaction I've had to a script. It triggered something deep in me. It speaks of the best and worst in human beings, of what can be avoided and what can't." Flanagan, 35, a novelist, had never attempted a script before, but encouraged by De Heer and script editor Deb Cox, he tackled the directing role "very well" says de Heer. "The actors love him.Ó

KERRY FOX

Kerry Fox has developed a reputation for playing intelligent, independent minded women. She first found acclaim with her portrayal of author Janet Frame in the biographical drama An Angel at my Table (1990). Fox won praise for her role in the Last Days of Chez Nous (1992). After a few unsuccessful films she took the role of an actress engaging in a sexual relationship with a stranger in Intimacy (2000) which was screened and praised at the 2001 Sundance and Berlin Film Festival.

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RICHARD FLANAGAN

Richard Flanagan was born in 1961 in Tasmania, and left school at the age of 16. He has been a labourer and Rhodes Scholar (to Oxford), and is married with three children. Each of Flanagan's three novels has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award . He made his directional debut for the film The Sound of One Hand Clapping.

"I like enigmatic, evocative titles," says writer/director Richard Flanagan, who first read it in an essay about feminist influence on the early English cooperative movement of all things. "I've since discovered it's a Buddhist saying. He grew up in a mining town on the West Coast of Tasmania and spent time at the hydro-electric power plant construction camp, where some of his story is set. He married a Slovenian, "and a large part of my life has been spent in that cultural environment. In fact, much of Australian culture has been dealing with this experience," he says, referring to the large number of migrants who were enticed to Australian in the postwar years

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Last Updated April 2004

Copyright Rachel Powell 2004

The Sound of One Hand Clapping, by Rachel Powell