In My Father's Den

NZ film to open Sydney festival

10 June 2004
The Age, Melbourne

A New Zealand feature will open the Sydney Film Festival for the first time in the event's 50-year history.

In My Father's Den opens the festival on Friday night and is one of the 230 feature films to be
screened as part of the 16-day event with 85 Australian and six world premieres.

" It sort of explores secrets and families and the way the past impacts on the present," said Brad McGann, the film's director.

" I was writing it during the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US and I kept hearing this word hope and I thought, well what actually is hope," said McGann, a first-time director.

The film stars British actor Matthew Macfadyen, Australia's Miranda Otto and New Zealand
teenager Emily Barclay.

Auckland University student Barclay, 19, was discovered by the same agent that cast Keisha
Castle-Hughes in Whale Rider.

" It all seems so unreal," Barclay, who has had no formal acting training, said.
" I am just a girl who did a movie."

Festival director Gayle Lake said McGann's film was chosen because of its honesty.

" It really is one of the best films that I have seen for a very long time," she said.

" It examines the bigger questions in relation to how we feel about family, how you can never run

from the past and at some point to achieve a level of redemption in your life, you have got to face up to the music."
Lake said a core focus in this year's films was "humanity".

" The question that is on everybody's mind this year is: where are we going?," she said.

" It is also an analysis of the world in time as we know it and what's wrong with it and I think there is certainly a lot of questioning about the relationship between countries and government and issues of nationalism.

Lake said she expected Philip Nitschke's documentary - Mademoiselle and the Doctor - to spark
strong debate.