VAN DIEMEN director to tackle outlaw biopic
Immortalised and romanticised in folklore, bushrangers are Australia's equivalent of outlaws like Jesse James. In similar fashion, bushrangers stole from farms, homesteads and banks, and also robbed travellers and mail coaches.
Auf der Heide told ScreenAnarchy he is writing a new script with Van Diemen's Land co-writer and lead actor Oscar Redding, and both want to try something different so they aren't pigeonholed by their arthouse debut feature.
"Oscar and I were joking around about making a comedy as we don't want to be pigeonholed into making these serious art movies. But for our next one we're starting to write a Western, something closer to The Proposition, an Australian bushranger story," he said.
"There are so many Australian stories such as William Buckley and Matthew Brady, but the bushranger story that we're looking at is the Ben Hall one. He was the most prolific bushranger; he did something like 300 robberies and was known as the 'gentleman bushranger' and girls dug him.
"He's a good basis but I think for the next film we won't be so caught up in the true events, and will make it more action-packed."
Bushrangers have been a favourite subject of filmmakers, poets, artists and authors throughout Australian history, while the country's most famous outlaw, Ned Kelly has been portrayed in cinema by people as diverse as Mick Jagger and Heath Ledger.
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